


What You Will

by thisisforyou



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Historical, As You Like It, First Kiss, First Time, Gender Issues, Hamlet - Freeform, Lord Chamberlain's men, M/M, Richard III - Freeform, Shakespeare, Slow Build, The Abbey Grange, The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, Twelfth Night - Freeform, actors!au, men playing women playing boys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 17:24:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 100,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1135400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisforyou/pseuds/thisisforyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, This Great Stage of Fools.</p><p>Shakespeare AU. </p><p>John Watson is the star player in William Shakespeare's theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men: Sherlock Holmes is a freelance actor who plays female parts and solves crimes in his free time. When they are romantically set opposite each other in Shakespeare's new play and simultaneously thrown together to catch a jewel-thief, sparks fly in ways nobody expects... eventual smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my new historical!AU! Before we start, I'd like to say that this has been a lot of trouble for me so far, and if I wasn't so enthralled by the idea I would have given up by now. I hate posting things without a perfect title, but I am doing just that: the title is from _King Lear_ , act 4 scene 6: _"When we are born, we cry, that we are come to this great stage of fools."_ The sentiment of the scene the quote is embedded in is a lot darker than this story will be, but the quote on its own will become appropriate later. As with _Infamia_ , I have endeavored to be as close to historically accurate as possible, but have bent a few obvious facts to fit the boys into history so blatantly. Any characterisations of historical figures are my own and not based on fact.
> 
> I've gone through and corrected some historical boo-boos since this was first posted as well :-)
> 
> Now, onwards - for England, Harry, and St George!

_London, 1602. Summer._

John watched the boy closely as he stepped out onto the bare stage, smiling slightly to himself. This afternoon's performance had been a bit of a shambles, but Ben, the boy standing quietly on stage and surveying his audience, could make them forget that. _Had_ made them forget that all afternoon. John liked Ben, liked playing with him - it almost made his own co-star's ineptitude bearable.

 _Almost_ , he thought to himself, glancing over at where a stage-hand was helping Tobias back into costume.

Ben lifted his head, opened his mouth, and struck the audience almost-silent with one intake of breath. John smiled again. That boy was going to go places.

" _If we shadows have offended,_  
Think but this, and all is mended:  
That you have but slumbered here  
Whilst these visions did appear.  
And this weak and idle theme -  
No more yielding than a dream -  
Gentles, do not reprehend.  
If you pardon, we will mend.  
And as I am an honest Puck,  
If we have unearned luck,  
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,  
We will make amends ere long,  
Else the Puck a liar call;  
So, good night unto you all.  
Take my hands if we be friends  
And Robin shall restore amends."

John had always loved that speech. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ had been the first play he had seen when he first returned from the war; he could still remember standing in the audience, spellbound by the young Puck and the knowledge that William Shakespeare had created all of this from the thin air everyone had always assumed lay between his ears.

 _Dream_ had been playing on and off for eight years now, and so this audience did not leave the hushed silence that John's had before bursting into applause and chatter and shrieks of laughter. John grinned at Ben when he slipped backstage again, clapping him on the back. "Nicely done," he commented.

Ben beamed at him. "Thanks, John. Want to do your bow with me, or the Queen of the Fairies over there tripping over the Royal gown?"

John frowned at Tobias, who was indeed tripping over the hem of his costume as the stagehand struggled to fasten the back of the dress. "We'd better go all together," he said, sharing a resigned look with the boy nonetheless. "Let the lovers go first, though."

He waved at the four young actors until he caught their attention and gestured towards the stage. None of them had done much yet, all at the beginnings of their careers. Actually, John was the most experienced actor on the stage this afternoon, and he was trying to fight the people who were claiming that this meant he was on his way out, stepping down from lead roles for good.

The crowd recognised him, though, judging by the cheer that had gone up when he'd opened the play for them. They certainly hadn't been cheering for his Hippolyta, who had barely got one line right all afternoon. Once the season was over, John would be recommending that the boy take an apprenticeship in something a long way from the South Bank theatres. He took Tobias' hand now to steady him as they strode onto the stage to take a bow and the boy almost tripped over his skirts again. Maybe something that didn't require physical co-ordination, he amended to himself, grinning out at the audience. They bowed once, then John pushed Ben forwards to take his own bow. He'd always felt that Puck was the star of the play, despite the people who argued over the respective merits of Lysander and Demetrius.

They waited on stage until everyone had taken a bow, then took one last one with the entire cast. John caught the stagehand's eye as they left the stage, already hurrying forwards to help Tobias out of his dress. "Have you seen him?" he asked.

The stagehand gave him a wry smirk. "You know where he'll be when you're ready."

John grinned and slapped Ben on the shoulder again as the boy pulled a shirt on over his intricate, leafy body-paint. "Pub?"

* * *

"Well played, John," the _Elephant's_ barman grinned, sliding a mug down the polished wood until it stopped right in front of John's crossed arms. "On the house. And you, Molly."

John grinned back at the barman, seeing the boy grin out of the corner of his eye. Ben had come to the Lord Chamberlain's Men after Will Shakespeare had found him at the back of a pub, performing something that the company had devised themselves, in which he was playing a lascivious scullery-maid named Molly. The nickname had been with him ever since. John didn't think that the boy minded; it was a reminder of his talent, after all. "Cheers," he replied, lifting the beer in a sort of grateful salute. "Haven't seen Will, have you?"

The barman rolled his eyes. "He's over there," he said wryly. "Follow the sound of poetry and giggling."

William Shakespeare was sat at a table at the back of the pub, a mug of beer in one hand and an ample-bosomed doxy in the other. John caught his eye across the room and raised an eyebrow, making his amusement clear. Shakespeare's dark eyes gleamed as he waved him over, his angular face softening into a grin. John put a hand on Ben's shoulder and guided the boy through the crowd.

"Testing out a new sonnet?" he asked as they sat down. The doxy giggled.

"Starting to," the playwright said happily. "I think it's going to be a big hit, romantically. _My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun_ ;  
 _Coral is far more red than her lips' red._  
 _If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;  
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head…"_

John eyed the woman, who giggled again, tilting her chest forward so that her breasts almost spilled out of her dress as though to demonstrate that they were, indeed, dun-coloured. "Flattering," he commented. "Women will swoon."

"You were wonderful in the play this afternoon, Master Watson," the doxy lilted, leaning still further towards him across the table. "I _really_ believed you could be the king of the fairies. _And_ of the Greeks."

He smiled modestly. "Thank you…" he said, leaving the sentence inflected like a question so that she would provide her name.

"Celine," she obliged.

"Thank you, Celine."

Shakespeare grinned over his mug of beer. "I told you people would understand doubling Theseus and Oberon," he said smugly.

John shrugged, a dry smile making itself known on his face. "I think the only person who _didn't_ understand it was Tobias," he commented lightly.

The playwright's face darkened. "Don't mention that boy to me," he said irritably. "Once this season is over I never have to speak to him again. God knows why he wanted to be an actor. He gets nervous just speaking to _me_."

" _I_ get nervous speaking to you, too, Master Shakespeare," Ben piped up.

Shakespeare eyed him loftily. "That didn't sound particularly nervous, my boy," he replied.

Ben grinned. "Oh, but I was trembling on the inside," he said with an air of mock-innocence.

"Which is exactly my point," the playwright persisted. "You keep it on the _inside_. Outwardly, you look beautifully confident. You, my lad, are a fantastic actor." Ben buried his nose in his mug in an attempt to hide his pleased flush.

"I've just finished a new comedy," Shakespeare announced. "John, I want you to play the hero. Molly, I have a hefty female part for you."

The boy frowned. "But not _the_ female part?"

John copied the expression as Shakespeare's smile became smugly mysterious. "Yesterday, I went to the Admiral's Men's performance of _The Spanish Tragedy_ ," he began.

"You know they're only playing that because _Hamlet_ went down so well," John interrupted.

Shakespeare waved an airy hand. "I know," he said shortly, "and _Hamlet_ was only such a success because it drew so heavily on _The Spanish Tragedy_ , that's not the point." John hid a smirk at his friend's cavalier attitude to his popularity. "It was a good performance, well put-together. That's not the point either - the point was, their Bel-imperia absolutely blew me away."

John sat up, interested. "Oh?" he prompted. He'd seen their usual lead female play Kyd's _Cornelia_ before and she hadn't been anything special.

"I went backstage to talk to the boy afterwards because I didn't recognise him. Turns out he's not actually one of the Admiral's Men. He plays with all kinds of companies, so long as he likes the play and respects the other actors. Sort of… freelances."

Ben frowned. "He sounds a bit jumped-up to me. He'd have to be good to support that kind of fussy attitude."

"How _old_ is he, to have that kind of attitude?" John asked.

Shakespeare grinned. "That was the surprising bit. He's twenty-seven. He still plays women because they're more of a challenge to him."

It was a moment before John realised his mouth was open, and closed it sharply. The man was only three years younger than he was himself, and John had not played women since before he joined the army. _Could not_ play women, he wouldn't think, not that he had ever been asked to try. He wasn't sure whether to respect or scorn this man. Perhaps he played women to hide his own effeminacy. Perhaps John shouldn't judge too heavily until he had _met_ him.

"Anyway, I told him about this new comedy and he said the part sounded wonderful and he enjoyed my writing, but he wouldn't work with Burbage. I said that was good, because I wanted _you_ as my lead. He said he'd been impressed by your _Julius Caesar_ , but he wanted to meet you before he said yea or nay. He was going to watch your _Dream_ and approach you afterwards sometime."

John couldn't help but smile. _Julius Caesar_ was the play he was most proud of being in. He suspected it was also the one that had set his rivalry with Richard Burbage in motion. "Does he have a name, then, this man, so I might know when to make a good impression?"

Shakespeare grinned. "Sherlock Holmes," he said. "And please _do_ make a good impression, John, unless you want to work with Tobias again."

Ben gasped excitedly, sitting up and accidentally slopping beer over the table. "Sherlock Holmes?" he said, waving away the slowly spreading puddle agitatedly. "I get to play next to _Sherlock Holmes?"_

"You've heard of him?" John asked in surprise.

"Everyone's _heard_ of him," the boy replied. "He used to play all the time when I was little. He was the one that made me want to act. By the time I joined a company he'd gone abroad. In and out of Italy, I heard. He probably played with _actual_ women there."

John raised an eyebrow at Shakespeare over the table as the barman mopped up the beer Ben had spilt with a good-natured _had too many, Molly?_. Being in Italy explained why John hadn't heard of him before - Ben had begun training with the Lord Chamberlain's men the year after John had returned from the military, which meant that this Holmes had probably been there the entire time John had been in the theatre trade. It could also explain why he had impressed Will so much; the French and Italian theatres held a certain reverence in the playwright's view, and surely Holmes would have picked up elements of their style.

"He sounds like a very interesting man," John concluded, raising his mug in a toast.

* * *

Ben left the pub early, but the sun had set by the time John stumbled out the door, shouting slightly inebriated thanks at the barman and leaning slightly on Will, who was singing a song about a cat and a haddock to which John had run out of verses an hour ago. He was fairly sure that the playwright was just making them up as he went along, but the style and quality of the verses hadn't changed, so it was difficult to tell, especially with a stomach full of beer.

He bid farewell to his friend on the corner of the street and made his way slowly and unevenly towards his tiny flat. It was rubbish, but on an army pension and the few, insignificant spoils to be gained from acting it was all he could afford, and he'd been there for longer than he cared to mention.

Someone sprinted past him, shoving him roughly against the wall as they barrelled past. John shouted something after him, turning around to see if he was being chased; the youth was bent almost double as he ran and seemed to be clutching something to his chest. A thief, then. As he turned, a tall figure swathed in a dark coat and looking shadowy and sinister burst out of an alley in hot pursuit.

" _Stop him_!" the figure yelled as it got closer, and John immediately took off after the first sprinter, the fuzz of alcohol stripping from his head in the wind.

He was faster than the youth from his years of military and then stage training; he wasn't _required_ to be in top physical condition anymore, but he hadn't quite lost the habit of rigorous exercising, and so the youth's shorter, less fit legs couldn't carry him as fast as John's and he caught up with him two doors before John's front door.

"I'd give it up if I were you," John told the young man when he was jogging comfortably beside him. He couldn't help the ridiculous grin that was spreading over his face; he hadn't felt this alive with the thrill of a chase for _years_.

The youth stopped running, doubling over whatever it was still clutched in his hands, obscuring it from John's view as he gasped for breath. John leaned against a nearby wall, affecting a casual pose but still ready to react if the man tried anything. After a moment of heaving and panting, the dark-haired man pushed off the wall and made to dodge past him.

John moved without thinking, slinging his fist up to connect with the side of the man's head and dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

On reflection, there were probably less violent ways of stopping him, John thought as the pursuant in the dark coat rounded the last corner and pulled up short beside them, frowning down at the fallen thief. He had a noble, angular face with high cheekbones and a strong nose, pale eyes flicking up to John with a tiny smile on lush, cupid's-bowed lips. "Was the punch really necessary?" the man asked, a touch of humour in his deep voice. He enunciated like a gentleman; John wondered what he was doing in the South Bank after dark.

He grinned in response. "Probably not. I was on my way home from the pub, might have got a bit carried away. I haven't run like that in years."

The man chuckled richly. "It's probably for the best," he decreed. "He might have been a bother to get back to Westminster conscious and struggling."

"What did he steal?" John asked, bending to try and roll the man over to retrieve whatever it was, quickly checking his pulse and feeling the cheekbone where he had hit it in case he'd broken it. He hadn't.

The dark coat billowed slightly as the man made a dismissive gesture. "An old widow's wedding jewels," he told him. "The usual, although slightly cleverer than your average thief. She only noticed they were missing because her harpiscord was off-key. You're welcome to a share in the reward, clearly you could use the money."

John frowned. "I only stepped in at the end," he protested. "You were the one who tracked the man down."

"And yet, I would have lost him had you not stepped in," came the reply. "Would you help me carry him to the Constable's house? And then surely you'll deserve a reward."

He knew the man would have trouble carrying the unconscious thief back to Westminster on his own, so he nodded slightly grudging acceptance. "So are you with the Constable, then?" he asked as the man bent and recovered a small cloth parcel from the unconscious thief's hands and stowed it in his coat pocket. He wasn't sure whether Constables, who were usually employed by the unpaid Justices of the Peace, were permitted assistants of their own. "Or just a citizen helping out and claiming the reward?"

"If I were only in it for the reward, I would not have offered any of it to you," the man said logically, offering John a cool but not unpleasant smile. "I'm a consulting detective," he explained, holding out a hand in introduction. "The name is Sherlock Holmes."

John blinked in surprise. " _You're_ Sherlock Holmes?" he repeated stupidly. Surely there couldn't be more than one Sherlock Holmes in London. He took the proffered hand and shook it eagerly. "John Watson, Lord Chamberlain's Men. I must admit this isn't how I expected to meet you."

Holmes' eyebrows reached the line of his dark, riotous curls and a smile broke onto his lips. "No," he agreed, his eyes sweeping along the length of John's body before meeting his eyes again approvingly. "But, now that we have, Master Watson, we may as well make use of it. It's a long shuffle from here to Westminster."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've probably figured out by now that Ben ("Molly") is in fact a genderbent Molly Hooper. I spent ages trying to figure out what the male version of 'Molly' was, and by the time I figured it out, I didn't like it. The play that they're getting together to perform, as I've discussed with people who follow my other work, is _Twelfth Night_ , another area I've had trouble with because I don't like certain elements of the play. I'm slowly coming to realise that this is not going to be as easy as _Infamia_ , and not just because I'm doing it on my own. I feel a little like I'm publishing it before it's ready, but I think that's for the best in order to get feedback, which I would of course appreciate.
> 
> I need to thank **Mr_CSI** and **chocolate fish** and **SplendidDust** over on fanfiction.net, without all of whom this story would not have left my head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter remarkably quick because most of it was already written. BUT, the show I was doing - an outdoor production of an episode of Star Trek: TOS - which was taking up all of my time is over now, so I'll have more time to write. Plus I'm in the flow now.
> 
> A glossary of theatrical terms is included at the end, because someone asked for one. Also, I went back and changed a few historical inaccuracies that people pointed out to me (thanks SO much, guys) so you might want to check that.

"France, was it?" Holmes asked after a few minutes, breaking a comfortable silence.

The unconscious thief almost slipped from John's hands as they walked. "What?"

"Where you were posted during your military service," Holmes continued, helping him to heft the man back into place between them. "Eight, nine years ago? The biggest concern for the British Army was the Spanish sympathy with the French Catholics. You would have been sent to Ireland or France, which was it?"

John gaped at him for a moment. "Um, both, actually," he admitted finally. "Ireland for a year, then home for a bit, and then we were camped in Brest after 1590." Holmes nodded briskly, as though this was what he had expected. "Sorry, how did you know that?"

Holmes smirked a little. "You carry yourself like a military man, but you mentioned not having run in years, so your service must have been a while ago. You're favouring your left shoulder as you carry this," he shrugged, bumping their unconscious quarry between them, "so you were invalided out, and the fact that you were walking home through this part of town says you're living on an army pension with no expectations of any other income. People who've been recently invalided home generally spend a little more on rent, with the expectation of having more money in the future. You've accepted that this is it." John realised that his mouth was open and closed it sharply. Holmes didn't miss the movement and smirked again. "And, of course, I've seen your name on playbills every time I've been in London in the last seven years. Allowing time for you to adjust and get back into the theatre, that's eight or nine years since active duty."

"That's…" John's mouth opened and closed for a moment, searching for any kind of word that would describe the incredible flood of logical conclusion that had just poured from the actor's mouth. Holmes' angular face closed off quickly, the smirk fading. "That's amazing. How do you remember things like that? Do you always… draw conclusions that quickly?"

Holmes paused slightly as he walked, his face twitching back into a sort of smile. "Yes, I do," he said, and John could pick up a tiny hint of flattered surprise in his deep voice. "I always have. I draw conclusions without consciously noticing the facts that lead me to them. It takes more effort to stop and explain my deductions than it takes to make them in the first place."

"Sorry," John apologised, grinning. "I won't ask for an explanation again. I was just surprised. It's magic, you know."

Holmes laughed. "Oh, yes," he agreed, shifting the thief higher over his shoulder. "Right down to the part where it becomes disappointingly simple once I explain the trick."

John returned the laugh, and they walked in quiet down a few streets, before John's curiosity overcame his respect of the other actor's apparent dislike of explaining himself. "Why didn't you become a Justice of the Peace, then? I mean, you're solving crimes now. Clearly you're brilliant at it. Why not do it in an official capacity?"

The tall man looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, but the pleased flush on his cheeks darkened. "Why didn't you become a physician after you came back from Brest?" he asked.

John stared at him again. "How… oh, never mind. Sorry." Holmes smiled slightly. "I just… when I first came back I'd been injured, obviously. I had a sort of tremor in my hand for a while, which isn't a good look for a doctor. And by the time that cleared up I'd started acting with Will. Having a job as a physician would have prevented me from acting."

The actor nodded. "I was the same. If I'd become a Constable, or even a Justice, I would have wound up finding old ladies' cats and shepherding people out of Saturday street-markets. This way I can pick and choose the interesting cases. Just the way I never joined a theatre company, so I can pick and choose the interesting roles."

It was, as John had noted previously, an extremely cocky point of view. But he'd just seen the skill with which Holmes used one of his talents, and the other had been enough to impress William Shakespeare, so he must be good at that one too – the playwright had people like Ben to compare him to. He grinned wryly and said nothing. He would reserve judgment on that until he'd seen him on a stage. Will still had a set of cue-scripts from _As You Like It_ , perhaps he and Holmes ought to discover what they were like together before they saw the script and had to make serious decisions.

There was something slightly standoffish about the taller man, with his arch bearing and high cheekbones that John now recognised as resulting from an actor's training and icy eyes and brisk way of talking. But he had a smile like a bolt of lightning, brilliant and brief, which transformed his face entirely into something quite lovely.

"Will said you play women because it's more challenging?" he queried after another few minutes' comfortable silence.

Holmes' mouth twitched up into a smile. "I believe it's more interesting, too," he said thoughtfully. "But yes - I play women because there are more rules, more constrictions - quite literally, as you'll know if you've ever worn a corset." He flashed a quick grin in John's direction. John _hadn't_ ever worn a corset, so he simply smiled weakly in response. "I started acting when I was fifteen because I thought it would help me as a detective. You know, if I could pretend more easily that I was supposed to be places where I wasn't authorised, et cetera. I was a late developer, and at fifteen my voice hadn't dropped and I hadn't grown into my body, and so when I started acting the company insisted on training me to play women."

"And you just never stopped," John finished, frowning at him.

The man smiled wryly. "Acting is… hypnotic," he said. "There is a joy to be had from acting that you cannot get in any other way." John grinned; he knew the feeling. Another reason he'd never wanted to become a physician after Brest. "And, as I said, I still play women because they're more challenging, and therefore more rewarding. And, in comedies, such as the one your Master Shakespeare is writing, often far more fun."

John nodded thoughtfully. He had actually thought himself, when _As You Like It_ first showed - John had taken bit-parts but hadn't fancied the lead - that Rosalind looked like incredible fun to play, with all of her quick-witted responses and her lengthy stint dressed as a man. The audience had adored the idea of the boy actor playing a woman who was, in her turn, playing a man. Will had often expressed interest in repeating the exercise, and John had eagerly signed up. He wondered suddenly whether _this_ was it.

He thought he'd rather like being attracted to Holmes as a man. Then his mind sat back and admired the singularity of that sentence for a moment. He only just managed not to snigger childishly to himself.

They continued to talk about acting - Holmes described the season of _The Spanish Tragedy_ that he was performing in currently, and John elaborated on what the detective couldn't figure out for himself about his rivalry with Richard Burbage - for the rest of the laborious journey to Westminster.

"I think it was _Julius Caesar._ That was a big hit and Burbage really wanted it. I couldn't have cared less up to then, but he got quite nasty after that. And then my _Richard III_ got better reviews than everyone expected given how old the play was, and then… naturally when he got _Hamlet_ instead of me, he gloated for weeks. I never told him that Will offered it to me and I turned it down."

Holmes laughed, a surprisingly rich and warm sound. "Wise decision, Master Watson," he said when it had died away. "You shouldn't play Hamlet."

John felt himself bristle. "Why not?" he asked, trying not to sound indignant. He knew he _could_ play Hamlet, he just hadn't liked the character enough to try.

"He was a pathetic fop of a character," Holmes deferred smoothly, directing them down a side-alley into the poorer part of the district. "Fascinating characterisation, I admit, but hardly likeable. The entire play is about him _not_ doing anything. _You_ are clearly a man of action, it wouldn't become you to play someone so frozen in cowardice and indecision." He frowned at another alleyway. "It suited Burbage to no end, though," he admitted. "Deplorable though his own character may be, the man is a passable actor."

John made a noncommittal face. He knew Burbage could act, or Will wouldn't keep giving him all the lead roles he had accumulated. That didn't mean he had to like other people saying it.

They stopped in front of a completely inconspicuous door, Holmes dropping the thief unceremoniously on the ground. "Feel free to leave now, Master Watson," he said brightly. "Your help has been much appreciated, but I imagine you will want to get _some_ rest this evening. I will split the reward with you and give you your share when I go to hear your play."

John released his hold on the thief, letting him fall completely onto the cobblestones. "Yeah, Will mentioned you'd be coming. Can I ask when? Our Puck is a fan of yours, he'll probably want some warning."

He smiled at the thought of Ben's open admiration of the man, and what he would say when John told him of the circumstances of their meeting. Holmes, too, smiled. "How flattering," he commented dryly, but John could tell that he was genuinely pleased by the statement. "I was planning to come tomorrow night, if you'll forgive the lack of _warning_. I will speak to you and Master Shakespeare afterwards, so if you would delay your usual defection to the pub for a few minutes."

John chuckled. "All right," he said, a yawn creeping up on him at the idea of his own bed. "I will see you tomorrow, Master Holmes."

The detective grinned back on him before banging loudly enough on the door in front of him to wake the entire street. "Indeed you will, Master Watson."

* * *

"I ran into Sherlock Holmes on my way back from the pub yesterday," John mentioned in a pointedly casual tone the next afternoon, studiously watching the costume designer paint leafy designs over Ben's torso instead of looking at Will. Ben jumped at the name, earning himself a thick stripe of paint down one arm and a frustrated tut from the artist.

"You met _Sherlock Holmes?_ " the boy repeated, his voice suddenly a little breathless. John chuckled. "What was he like?"

Will frowned. "Did you make a good impression?" he asked sternly.

John considered the question. "I was a little drunk," he admitted, "but I managed to knock out the criminal he was chasing and help him carry the unconscious thief back to some Constable's house. I think it was a good impression, just perhaps in the wrong areas. I don't think _either_ of us made a good impression on the Constable, at that time of night." Ben's eyes widened until John could almost see the stars twinkling around Holmes' profile in them. "Did you _know_ he's a detective as well? When he's not acting, he's solving crimes."

"I didn't know," the playwright said thoughtfully. "I can't say I'm surprised, though. He's very astute."

John smiled. "If I had to describe him in one word, _astute_ would be a good one," he remarked.

Will actually laughed. "He did it to you too, then? That thing where he drops things you've never told anyone into casual conversation, like he just knows all your secrets?" he shook his head with a wry grin as John shrugged. "He told me almost the exact words my schoolmaster used to tell me off with, all about my father, even my son. I could barely believe it."

John's eyebrows shot into his hairline. The playwright barely talked to _John_ about his son, and they'd been best friends since they were children. He supposed Holmes had read it in the set of his jaw or the lines around his eyes. Or _Hamlet_ , he supposed; he'd recognised a lot of the sentiment etched into that play.

"Well," he said lightly, accepting a toga when the stage manager handed it to him, "don't wet yourself, Molly, but he'll be in the audience this afternoon."

Ben almost jumped out of his seat. " _Sherlock Holmes_ is coming to hear our performance?" The man still attempting to draw his art on the boy's body crossed his arms in disgust. Ben ignored him. "But he _can't_ \- what if I make a mistake? I haven't prepared!"

John raised an eyebrow. "You haven't made a mistake this entire season. _I've_ made more mistakes than you have. You'll be splendid, just like always - and don't forget he'll be comparing you to Tobias. You could say all of your lines backwards and you'd still look good."

"He won't be comparing me to Tobias," the boy panicked. "He'll be comparing me to _him!_ I can't compare to Sherlock Holmes!"

Will rolled his eyes. "He's twenty-seven years old. That gives him, what, thirteen years more experience than you? He _won't_ be comparing you to him. Just do what you have done every performance this season, and he'll be blown away." John shared a small smile with his friend as Ben continued to fidget nervously. "Now try to sit still so that Archie can finish your torso."

They walked away from the artist's grateful smile, but they didn't get far before Will stopped with a hand on John's arm. "You liked him, then? Holmes?" he asked, sounding feverishly excited.

John smiled. "I did, yeah," he replied easily. "Probably shouldn't have, some of the things that he said, but I did." He let out a breath and windmilled his arms in a show of warming up. "I'm a bit nervous myself," he admitted. "I mean… he is effectively _judging_ us. All of us."

The playwright patted him comfortingly on the back. "As you said to Molly," he said brightly. "Do what you've done all season, and he will love you, or he'll be wrong."

"That's not quite what I said," John protested, unable to stop the smile from spreading across his face, "but thanks, Will."

Shakespeare grinned boyishly. "You'll be absolutely fine, I know it."

* * *

Surprisingly, they were. Even Tobias was on form; John could see the back tier of the audience responding to his lines, where usually they were whipped away by the wind and the groundlings from his lack of projection. John clapped him on the back when they finished, grinning. "Well done tonight, Tobias," he said earnestly, trying not to sound surprised. "That voice work is really paying off."

The boy smiled gratefully at him, almost ruining the effect by tripping over his hem before the stagehand could come to give him a hand. John turned around, chuckling to himself, and almost walked into a sharply familiar figure in a long black coat.

"If that was _well done_ , I dread to think what he's normally like," the actor remarked in a low voice, just quiet enough that Tobias couldn't hear.

John frowned and shushed him. "Don't say that, you'll hurt him," he said indignantly. "He tries. I don't think he'll come back to the theatre, though."

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "God forbid," he remarked coolly. "Tobias Anderson. I wondered why I'd never heard of him."

"Did you just come here to insult us, then?" John asked irritably, trying to push past him but failing. The man was remarkably solid, for all that his pale skin and black coat made him look like some kind of spectre.

He frowned. "I offended you. Why did that offend _you_?"

John refrained from throwing his hands up in frustration. Will had mentioned a week or so ago that actors seemed to do _everything_ in everyday life with a sort of dramatic flair that ordinary people lacked; John had laughed at the time, but he'd been conscious of his own gestures ever since. "You insulted my co-star. He's a part of my performance. Constructive criticism I can handle, but plain insults do tend to offend me."

Holmes watched him for a moment as though he was genuinely unaware of his _faux pa_. Then he swallowed, his entire posture softening. "I apologise," he said quietly. "If it helps, I thought your performance was very impressive. And I'm committing to the play for the entire season, although I had largely decided that after last night anyway."

John stopped for a moment, thinking that over. He'd heard a lot from Will about how fussy Holmes was, how many productions he'd turned down. Was he saying that he had decided to do the play after meeting John, without seeing him act or seeing the rest of the cast? He couldn't help but find that touching, whether it was as big a deal as the playwright had made out or not. And, naturally, with the sudden rush of warm feelings, his anger faded. "Thank you," he said instead. "Will'll be delighted. He should be around somewhere." He looked around, but caught sight of Ben instead, gingerly pulling a shirt on over his body-paint. "Molly! Come over here for a minute," he called.

The boy grinned at him and trotted over; comically, he didn't look too closely at the person standing next to him until he got there. His jaw fell open. "' _Zounds,_ " he said, suddenly standing up straighter and adjusting his shirt. "You're Sherlock Holmes, aren't you? I'm Ben - Benjamin Hooper. It's an _honour_ to meet you, Master Holmes."

Holmes smiled broadly, his cheeks crinkling. John marvelled again at how the expression softened his entire face. "Sherlock, please," he said. Ben grinned brightly. "Would you prefer me to call you 'Molly'? I didn't see the play that earned you the nickname, but if this afternoon's performance was anything to go by I'm certain it was excellent."

"Molly is fine," Ben replied, stammering slightly and flushing. "It doesn't matter, really - only most people around here call me Molly."

Holmes - _Sherlock_ , John corrected himself with a tiny smile - nodded in an understanding sort of manner. "Well, I look forward to working with you, _Molly_."

His face lit up again. "You're doing the play?"

"You were both spectacular," Sherlock confirmed. "And I met John last night and we got along surprisingly well." He turned back to John, his expression oddly hesitant. "In fact, I've never got along with anyone quite as easily as that. I knew I'd enjoy working with you after that."

John resisted the urge to ask him to repeat himself, to hear again from those lips that Sherlock Holmes had agreed to an entire season of Shakespeare's comedy after just _talking_ to John, and not about the play. He grinned instead, watching as the almost scared expression on the other man's face broadened into a return smile. He suddenly re-evaluated his opinion of the younger man: perhaps not someone raised to privilege who expected to be attended, someone born to arrogance and superiority, but someone who had adopted them as a defence mechanism when the world decided he didn't fit. He remembered the surprised, flattered smile on his face when John had complimented his observational powers. Those sorts of too-personal comments must offend more people than they impressed.

"I would be honoured, Sherlock," he said quietly instead.

Sherlock smiled at him. "As would I, John," he replied. "Your performance tonight was admirable. I've seen _Dream_ before, but never quite with that level of quiet _menace_ that you added to those scenes. Both of you," he added, casting Ben a glance. " _My mistress with a monster is in love_ \- most people throw that line away when they get distracted by the comedy of Bottom, but the two of you _horrified_."

"I'm delighted to hear it." The three of them turned at the sound of the playwright's voice; Will stood behind them leaning against the wall, grinning broadly. "Welcome aboard, Master Holmes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Doubling_ , or _role-doubling_ , is the practice of having the same actor play more than one part. It's not certain whether Shakespeare ever did this, but it is speculated that Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania were intended to be doubled. Many modern companies do this to exaggerate the gender war that can be seen in the forest. Another good one is doubling Posthumus and Cloten (effectively the hero and the villian) in _Cymbeline_ , the best example of which was played by Tom Hiddleston in Cheek by Jowl's production. Google it. I would have paid for flights and accommodation just to see this if I'd known it was happening at the time.
> 
>  _Cue-scripts_ were the format that actors were given scripts in. An actor was given their part rather than the entire script; they would get, at most, the last sentence, at least, the last word of the line before their own. Shakespeare often used this to his advantage by repeating the cued word several times.
> 
> Also, as an interesting fact, good actors have amazing cheekbones because of all the voice-training that they do. Proper projection of the voice in a theatre involves opening the resonant cavities in the cheekbones, which builds up muscles. Hey presto, you could cut yourself slapping the Cumberface.
> 
> I think the idea of bodypaint for Puck comes from the novel _King of Shadows, by Susan Cooper_ , but I can't quite remember. Also I wrote this before we discovered Anderson's first name, so sorry about that.
> 
> Lastly, thanks so much to everyone who responded to chapter one, especially **Silmanumenel** for pulling me up on my slapdash research in certain areas.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that took so long. Life, you know. This is also longer than my average chapter, hope that makes up for it somewhat. So many thanks to [Silmanumenel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Silmanumenel), who looked over this chapter as a historical consultant. I feel like this is so much better for her input. Case and historical notes at the end of the chapter, as usual.

John was just preparing to leave his flat the next morning when Sherlock Holmes knocked on his door.

He was dressed in the same striking style as the past few days, impeccably fashionable but just different enough from what other well-off people were wearing currently to attract attention, his black coat billowing slightly in the icy breeze, tapping a roll of cue-scripts against one gloved hand. "Good morning, John," he greeted him calmly, as though they had arranged to meet and John ought to have been expecting him.

John blinked a few times. "Morning, Sherlock," he answered, trying a politely inquisitive smile to remind the detective that he was unexpected, but not imply that he was unwelcome. "How did you know where I live?"

Sherlock shrugged idly. "You mentioned living close to where we met. I came back to where that happened and asked someone if they knew where you lived. I knew you'd been here long enough for your neighbours to know you." He gave a sudden, almost cursory smile as John processed the information, then waved the scripts in the air. "Shakespeare came to the place I'm staying in at the moment and gave me my first act's cue-scripts, I just wanted to talk them over with you. If you're not busy," he added, though the expression on his face made it quite clear that he already knew John wasn't.

"Right," John said slowly, not trying to hide the smile at the thought of having cue-scripts for the play - the first glimpse of a new work always thrilled him."I haven't got any -"

The actor held up the roll of script pre-emptively. "I got yours as well. I told him I would go and find you."

One corner of John's smile twitched higher. Sherlock was enigmatically calm on the surface, but the excitement practically vibrating beneath his skin was delightfully obvious. "All right," he replied. "I was just about to go for a walk - I'm sorry, this flat isn't really big enough to entertain. Can we walk and talk?"

Sherlock smiled, genuinely this time, just a slight lifting of the corners of his mouth and a brightening of his eyes. "Of course," he replied. "I'd like that."

"So," John tried once they had closed his front door behind them. "You said 'where you're staying' - are you not living there permanently?"

The detective frowned. "I'm afraid not. I'm staying at an acquaintance's inn in Islington currently - I've been having a bit of trouble finding lodgings within my price range ." He stopped suddenly, John almost stepping into a questionable puddle in the road to keep up with the change in pace. "Actually," he said thoughtfully. "I found a nice two-bedroom house in Marylebone for rent. I couldn't stand the thought of sharing lodgings with a stranger, but I… if we split the rent, it wouldn't be much more than your current rooms."

John couldn't help but stare a little. "For half of a two-bedroom house in Marylebone?" he said incredulously, ignoring the other implication in the sentence in case it had been accidental.

Sherlock shrugged. "I know the woman who owns and keeps the house. She owes me a favour and offered me a lower rent - her husband was executed for treason following the Devereux plot last year."

"So now she owns the house," John finished, just to show he was on the same page. "We got into a bit of trouble over that, too. Last time Will ever took a commission. That's quite a big favour, though," he prompted, raising an eyebrow and receiving a raised eyebrow in return. "What did you do for her?"

The detective smiled with something almost resembling fondness. "I was the one who proved her husband was secretly meeting with Devereux to arrange the rebellion, and that she couldn't have known about it herself," he said casually, as if the words were largely irrelevant. "I didn't have anything to do with the furore over _Richard II_ , though, you got out of that one on your own. But without me, he wouldn't have been executed."

John tried not to stare. "And she owes you a favour for that, does she?"

"Oh, yes," Sherlock insisted. "He was quite a piece of work." He shook his head briskly as though to clear it while John shook his in a repeated protest of Sherlock's apparent ignorance of ordinary people's hearts. He wondered how the man could act so well without understanding the mechanics of love. "That aside," the detective continued abruptly, "she'll be in the house now if you want to take a look."

It took a moment before John fully registered what he was suggesting. He'd dismissed the idea earlier when the other man didn't press the matter, but now there was no mistaking the intent in his words. "Hang on," he insisted, stopping in the street to better stare incredulously at the detective. "Are you actually suggesting that we move in together?"

Sherlock stopped as well, turning back to John with a slightly bewildered expression. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked, frowning.

"You… we've known each other for days, and you want us to move in together? You know my entire life history just from looking at the way I walk, but you can't possibly know if we'll cohabit well together from two days' acquaintance." Sherlock opened his mouth, probably to argue that last point, but John held up a hand to show he hadn't finished. "On top of that," he continued, "we're about to start working with each other. _Acting_ with each other, as _lovers_. I don't think I could spend most of the day being so intimate with anyone and not be able to escape from them in my own home."

The detective looked as though he hadn't considered this point. He nodded slowly. "I can understand that," he admitted. "But the offer is there, should you ever wish to look at the place. I'd like it if you considered it once the season is over."

"Thank you," John replied, meaning it. Even his closest friends - his own _family_ had carefully avoided the subject of taking in a lodger around him. "Most people wouldn't want to live with me."

Sherlock made a face, apparently to display scorn at the thought of _most people_. "No, they're not generally enamoured with the thought of living with me, either," he commented. He sounded unconcerned, but John walked slightly closer to him in comfort all the same.

He slapped him cheerfully on the shoulder after a moment. "So, what did you think of the scripts, then?" he asked.

The actor brightened, withdrawing the folds of paper from an inside pocket of his incredible coat. "It's very difficult to gain an accurate picture of a play from two cue-scripts, especially when they only contain the first act," he said briskly. "One day, I should hope it will be possible to give every actor an entire script before they begin to rehearse. A character is shown just as much by other people's lines as their own, and I have seen a great deal of subtext and foreshadowing left out of good plays because the actors simply did not have the information to portray them."

John nodded emphatically. "Especially given the lack of rehearsal with the entire cast . I found that especially with _Julius Caesar_ \- the first time we got everyone together and ran the entire play, I had to completely revise my picture of his character because of the way everyone else treated him."

Sherlock hummed agreement. "It can also be incredibly irritating if other actors get the wrong idea from their lines. Often, that far in, it is too late for simpler men to change their readings."

He smiled at the taller man's automatic assumption that anyone who disagreed with his own interpretation of a script was wrong, but he knew the truth of the statement. Sometimes people did get the wrong end of the stick from the incomplete lines of the cue-script, but actors like Tobias found it impossible to change the way they said a line after they had memorised it a certain way.

"Well, you and I can rehearse together, at least," he said, grinning at the thought.

Sherlock hummed, but he sounded thoughtful. "Actually, from our parts in the first act, I'm not certain the romance between Viola and Orsino - that's my character and yours, I don't know how much you know about the play - is the centre of the story. It seems quite likely that the romance plotline between Viola and Olivia will be more developed."

John frowned. "Viola and Olivia?" he repeated questioningly. "I only know that it is a comedy - Will compared it to _As You Like It,_ which I took to mean that Viola will spend a great deal of it in male dress."

The actor nodded, waving the roll of script around eagerly as he spoke. "Viola washes up on the shore of an island and presents herself in male clothing to its Duke, Orsino, as a singer. She falls in love with him, but he is obsessively in love with a young woman called Olivia - presumably to be played by your friend Molly - who in turn wants nothing to do with him because she's in mourning over her dead brother. Orsino sends Viola, as Cesario the singer, to woo Olivia on his behalf, which she does a little too effectively and Olivia falls for Cesario. From what I've seen, I think the action of the play might focus more on Viola wooing Olivia and another subplot without the two of them than on Viola and Orsino themselves."

Will had warned John that it was a very female-oriented play and his character was not on stage for the majority of the action and John did not mind that - he often preferred it that way. His current Oberon, for example, was both more fun for him and more memorable for the audience than Lysander or Demetrius or even Bottom. John nodded slowly. Comedies were quite often more focussed on women than men. He'd once remarked that it was an attempt to make up for the almost nonexistence of women in tragedy .

"I'm sure Molly would be more than eager to rehearse with you, as well," he said, smiling at the thought of the look on Ben's face when Sherlock offered and ignoring the tightness in his chest at the thought of the detective passing him over for the younger boy. Jealousy in theatre was far more trouble than it was worth - and besides, it was _him_ that Sherlock had sought out once he had read the scripts.

Sherlock smiled tightly, another cursory, polite, superficial smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Good," he said. "And perhaps we could rehearse _As You Like It_ as well, to better portray the romance between Viola and Orsino, if Shakespeare believes them to be similar."

John grinned back at him. "I was thinking that myself," he admitted. "I enjoyed the scenes between Orlando and Ganymede. I remember mentioning to Will that if he ever wanted to replicate the relationship, I would be eager to play the man."

"Your relationship with Shakespeare sounds immensely profitable for the both of you," Sherlock remarked, smirking. "He gets the security of a fine actor in his company, and you are offered lead roles in fantastic plays before anyone else."

John shook his head in amusement. "It has its advantages," he agreed. " And to think I often had to help him in school - he had so much trouble keeping his mind in one place ."

The detective opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again sharply; a beggar crouching in the street had grabbed the bottom of his coat and held him back a few paces. "Spare any change, sir?" the boy asked plaintively. John almost expected him to yank his coat out of the offending hand with a sharp word, but to his surprise Sherlock sank into a crouch in front of him, hands searching in one pocket.

"Do you have something for me?" the detective asked in a low voice, pulling sixpence from his pocket and holding it up. The boy looked around furtively before bending close and murmuring quickly in his ear. Sherlock flipped the sixpence into the boy's lap and straightened, a little smile twisting the corners of his mouth as he processed whatever the boy had told him. After a moment he muttered, "Excellent," to himself and carried on walking as though nothing had happened, with a call of, "Thank you, Billy!" back to the boy.

John stared between the two for a moment; Billy stared back with unashamed curiosity. "You with him, then?" he asked finally. "Mister Holmes?"

"Um," John floundered slightly, still watching the detective walk away. "I'm not sure, I -"

Sherlock stopped as he was about to round the corner, turning back to face them with one eyebrow raised. "Are you coming, John?" he called back, a touch of a smile colouring his lips.

"I guess so," John replied, answering both Sherlock's and Billy's question at once. He looked down at the boy. "Thanks, again," he said brightly, and hurried off down the alley to catch up with the actor.

The taller man was smiling expectantly down at him. "John, you assisted me with this particular line of work once before. You wouldn't be interested in doing it again, would you?"

John couldn't help but grin back; a little crime-fighting would definitely break up the day's monotony. "As long as I'm back in time for _Dream_ , I'd love to help."

Sherlock's smile widened, but there was a hint of knowing smugness underneath it that showed that he knew _exactly_ how eager John was for a repeat of the first night they had met. "We won't be as active as the first time, I'm afraid, but it should be interesting nonetheless - this way from here."

"What did he say to you?" John asked as he turned where Sherlock pointed him.

"An address," the detective supplied. "London's homeless are infinitely useful. Certain of the city's Constables have grown used to the idea that if they let the street children know that they are looking for me, I will get the message within the hour. In this case, Constable Lestrade put out the word and the address at which he requires my help with a murder case."

John frowned, still running every third step or so to keep up with the other man. "Surely he should do the _murder_ cases himself? Shouldn't that be… you know, official?"

Sherlock smirked. "One day, London will have a proper law enforcement authority," he commented idly. "The current system is close to useless. That's why I have so much custom - the Justices hold the title to impress people, not to actually make a difference. And the ones who employ Constables don't pay them enough for them to do anything because they aren't paid themselves. If you want a crime solved, you either have to do it yourself - and those so-called 'vigilantes' are more of a hindrance than anything else - or hire someone like me. And there are no people like me. Only me."

John rolled his eyes, but let the smile show on his face. "So this Lestrade calls you because _he_ doesn't get paid enough? Doesn't he have to pay you?"

"Oh, no," Sherlock waved a dismissive hand as though the idea was ridiculous. "I don't make a habit of asking for payment, John. Most people insist upon _rewarding_ me on completion of my services, but if I did it for the money it would lose some of its appeal - I would start taking the less interesting cases purely because they pay the most. Lestrade brings me the most interesting cases - the murders, especially - and so I'm more than willing to do them _pro gratis_."

There was an odd kind of relish in Sherlock's smooth baritone, as though a murder was the best thing that could possibly happen to him. John frowned a little, but he supposed that murders would happen whether the detective wanted them to or not, and having someone around who enjoyed solving them and bringing the offenders to justice was probably better than not having him. "Right," he said instead. "That certainly explains why you can't afford decent living quarters."

Sherlock smiled tightly. "The inkeep of the place I'm staying in was the prime suspect in a triple murder investigation a few years ago. I happened to be in town and successfully proved he couldn't have been the murderer. He's letting me stay at the inn for free as a favour, but I imagine there will be limits to his gratitude eventually."

John allowed him a dry chuckle. "Well, perhaps someone will _reward_ you enough that you can afford a better place even temporarily," he consoled. "Though I'm sure if you suggested to this inkeep that you were moving out without having found permanent lodgings he would insist that you stay as long as you need." Sherlock gave another short smile. "So where was the address, then? The murder?"

The detective's face brightened considerably. "Chislehurst," he supplied. "The Abbey Grange."

* * *

The Abbey Grange was a large stone building; its garden path stretched on for what felt like almost as long as the walk to get to the front gate. When they knocked on its enormous front door it was at least a minute before John heard footsteps approaching from the other side.

The young olive-skinned woman who opened the door was not dressed like a servant; John raised an eyebrow at her white shirt and dark breeches. She raised a rudely defiant eyebrow back at him before her eyes shifted to Sherlock and her face fell into a disapproving expression.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she asked rudely.

Sherlock smiled softly. "Good morning, Miss Donovan," he said in a tone that was just slightly too pleasant to be genuine. "Constable Lestrade invited me to take a look at his crime scene."

Miss Donovan ran a hand through her messy dark curls and sighed in frustration. "I told him not to call you," she complained. "We don't need your help. It was a burglary gone wrong, that's all. Blokes were making off with the silver when the lord and lady of the house came back, so they knocked them both out and Lord Brackenstall died. The lady's inside giving evidence and it's clear that it was the Randalls."

The Randall gang had been in the periodicals; John remembered reading about their string of violent robberies. He looked at Sherlock for his reaction to the woman's shockingly rude behaviour to her superior, but the detective's expression hadn't changed. "Then perhaps there is evidence in the scene that may assist us in capturing them," he suggested calmly. "I was asked to come all the way here, Miss Donovan, do not think I am leaving without at least looking at the room. And I would like to speak to Lady Brackenstall."

The woman looked as though she was about to argue, but when she opened her mouth there was a man's sharp call of her surname from the hall behind her before she could begin to speak. She held her tongue with an expression that suggested the effort caused her physical pain and turned to look at the man who had spoken.

A stocky, harassed-looking man with short, greying hair and a pleasant face clattered down the hall, giving the two of them a cursory smile. "Let him in, please. I'd still like him to take a look, there might be something we missed." Donovan reluctantly stepped aside, allowing Sherlock to step over the threshold, John following close behind. "Oh," the man affected, smiling distractedly at John, "have we met? Constable Gregory Lestrade."

John smiled back and accepted the proffered handshake genially; his attempt to introduce himself in return was cut off by Sherlock. "This is John Watson, formerly of Her Majesty's militia, more recently a lead player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men," he said, sounding almost proud. "John helped me catch that jewel thief a few days ago and will be assisting me here as well."

Lestrade looked surprised, but didn't make any comment on it. "Right," he said instead. "Well, nice to meet you. Lady Brackenstall is in the sitting room - we had to move the body as she's still living in the house, but otherwise the scene is undisturbed. I'm sorry, but there might not be much for you to do - I sent for you before the Lady came around, and she turned out to have far more memory of the event than we expected."

Sherlock nodded perfunctorily and made a gesture indicating that the Constable should lead the way. John fell into step beside him as they made their way down the hall, Donovan somewhat grumpily remaining in the foyer. John tried to smile at her, but she ignored him. He wondered what had led her to this, a young mixed-race woman wearing men's clothes and assisting a Constable in a grisly murder investigation with such a chip on her shoulder. It was clear that Lestrade had not allowed her in the sight of Lady Brackenstall, and even though John understood why he felt a twinge of pity for the girl.

He was quickly distracted when they entered what John presumed was the sitting room, however; though there was no dead body, it was obvious where one had recently been due to the dark stain marring the sumptuous carpet. One of the curtains had been pulled from the wall by the railing and was piled on the carpet by the window. The air was thick with the cloying scent of an expensive perfume that more or less exactly failed to cover up the underlying stink of old blood. John watched Sherlock wrinkle his nose and narrow his eyes, striding confidently over to the bloodstain on the carpet and crouching over it critically.

Nausea settled faintly in the pit of his stomach. He'd been so grateful when they shipped him back home from Brest, bone-weary from the long siege and the constant vigilance and the blood he could never quite wash out from under his fingernails. Other soldiers in his regiment had had breaks from the sudden and surreal presence of death, but as a surgeon John had seen, analysed and handled almost every wounded man in the field. The smell of blood brought parts of him back there, made his wounded shoulder ache and his stomach rebel. There were things about his time in the military that he had found himself thinking about wistfully in recent years: such evocative proximity to death was not one of them.

"Blow to the back of the head," Sherlock muttered, still bent close to the carpet. "He was hit while he was standing up, you can tell by the way the blood has spread. Does that fit with Lady Brackenstall's account?"

"It does, Master Holmes."

John looked around sharply; it was a woman's voice that had spoken, clear and sharp with a touch of out-of-place amusement. The woman it belonged to was tall and upright, clearly the lady of the house. Her blonde hair fell about her face in carefully arranged ringlets that accentuated her sharp, pale cheekbones, a dark bruise blossoming on the left one. Her blue eyes sparkled with something bold that John couldn't quite place. Sherlock straightened, frowning at her. "Lady Brackenstall," he said pleasantly, affecting a smile it was clear he didn't believe in as he made an almost insouciant bow. "I am sorry that we meet in such unpleasant circumstances."

She smiled as she returned the polite greeting, but John was close enough to see that it trembled. "Your reputation precedes you, Master Holmes," she said airily. "I have every confidence you can find the men who did this."

"With your help, my Lady, I am certain that we will," he replied politely. "Perhaps if you would give me your account, and I will attempt to verify it based on the evidence in the room while you speak."

The Lady hesitated for a moment, bringing a tiny crease between Sherlock's eyes as he tried not to frown. Then she smiled in an attempt to cover up the pause. "Of course, Master Holmes." She held his firm eye contact for the barest of moments before turning around and lowering herself and her voluminous black skirts into an armchair. Her handmaid moved demurely to stand behind the chair, keeping one hand where the Lady could see it as though she was afraid the other woman would forget she was there. "Teresa can help, can't you, Teresa, you were awake."

"I was, milady," the girl replied quietly, smiling softly at Sherlock over her mistress' head. "I doubt I will ever forget it."

John's stomach twisted and he took an almost involuntary step forwards to comfort the girl; Lady Brackenstall held up a hand as though to prevent him from doing so. He halted, glancing at Sherlock. It had been a long time since he'd dealt with nobility for anything more than a 'thank you' as they complimented his performance. Sherlock shook his head minutely. When he turned back to the maid, she had withdrawn to pick up a bowl of cool water and begin to press it to the bruise on her lady's face.

"Very well," he said instead, affecting an unconcerned air. "When you are ready, Lady Brackenstall."

She shifted in her seat, her blue eyes darting from Sherlock to the bloodstain on the carpet. The detective continued to watch her as she lifted a hand to shoo away her maid and her sleeve slipped back to reveal three red welts on her forearm. Sherlock made an exclamation, crowding in closer. The maid, too, took a deep breath in as though she had not noticed the marks before. "But my Lady," Sherlock exclaimed, reaching for the offending forearm and being slapped away. "You have other injuries!"

The Lady shook her sleeve back over the welts, grimacing. "They are unrelated, Master Holmes, though they perhaps provide a good place to start. My husband was not a pleasant man. He was far too fond of the bottle, and when he drank he often became violent. My arm was the result of my attempting to suggest he had had enough. Last night I was reading in this armchair to avoid our marriage bed and I must have dozed off here. When I awoke I went to close that window," she pointed at the huge bay window at her back; Sherlock strode to it, throwing the latch and peering at the ground below, "although I had not remembered opening it. When I drew back the curtain…"

Apparently satisfied, Sherlock returned to her, still frowning intently. "There was a man in front of the window. He struck me across the face and I lost consciousness, and when I regained it he had pulled down the curtains and was using the fringes to tie me to this chair."

Sherlock bent and picked up the fraying, knotted fabric from the floor beside the armchair. He examined the frayed edge thoughtfully. Lady Brackenstall continued speaking, watching him with an odd expression on her face. "They had opened the bottle of wine on the mantelpiece - it belonged to Eustace, it was French, the very finest, I believe. There were three of them - the one who struck me was older, but strong, and the other two could have been his sons, they all looked so similar. They drank the wine and they were packing up the silver from the mantel when Eustace ran in. He was carrying this black club he favoured, it is on the floor where he fell. He must have heard a disturbance. He charged at the older man, but the two sons grabbed him and beat him over the head with the fire iron. I do not think that they meant to kill him. They panicked when they realised he was dead, I believe, and that is why they only took that silver from the mantel and fled."

The detective narrowed his eyes, examining the glasses on the mantelpiece and the club and bent poker by the door. Lady Brackenstall watched him carefully, looking almost anxious and biting her lip. John frowned at her. Such anxiety was out of character for a woman whose abusive husband had just been murdered. Especially when the reasons and the culprits were so plain. Grief, perhaps, maybe even relief that the constant abuse from Lord Eustace would end, but not worry.

" The curtains would have made considerable noise at being pulled from the wall so violently, would they not? Why did none of the servants hear it and come running ?"

Lady Brackenstall lifted an eyebrow. " It was late, as I said, Master Holmes - all the staff were abed by that hour, and their quarters lie on the opposite side of the house."

Sherlock nodded slowly, apparently appeased. He lifted the wine bottle from the mantel and held it up to the light, frowning at it. It gleamed red, dregs and bees' wings floating around in it. The frown intensified as he put it down and looked back at the glasses; even from where he stood, John could see the dark droplets that remained at the bottom of all three glasses, one even containing the scraps of bees' wings.

"Continue, my Lady," he said once he had finished his perusal. "They left you tied to the chair, and I am assuming gagged somehow so that you could not call for help?"

She dipped her regal head. "They did, Master Holmes, but after an hour or so of wriggling I was able to free my mouth enough to scream and Teresa found me. She untied me and then raised the other servants, who called Constable Lestrade. I fainted when Teresa had returned me to my bedchamber from the shock, but I awakened shortly before you arrived." She smiled again, an incongruously wide and playful smile. Teresa added her own timid curling upwards of lips as if to corroborate the story. "Is that all, Master Holmes? I wish to break fast, I have not eaten since last night." she said lightly.

Sherlock frowned further at her manner, but he nodded.

Once the Lady and her maid had swept from the room, the detective let out an almighty sigh. Lestrade frowned at him. "So," he said cheerfully, slapping Sherlock companionably on the arm. "Pretty clear, don't you think? We'd assumed the Randall gang had left England, but if they haven't we'll catch them. We have military posted everywhere looking for them."

The actor made a discontented noise. John understood why he was upset; there had been something slightly odd about Lady Brackenstall, something about her manner that was not how he expected someone so recently widowed to act. "Do you think she was telling the truth?" he asked.

Sherlock shrugged slowly. "There's no reason not to believe her," he admitted. "There are several elements to this that are unusual, but nothing impossible, so I suppose we must trust her. Good news for the Randall case."

John hummed. The detective took a sharp breath in and seemed to rouse himself. "Well, I suppose that's that," he said briskly. "John, we ought to be going - if we make our way to the South Bank now we can perhaps get some time in the Globe before it opens for the afternoon."

"I'm sorry that wasn't as interesting as you thought," John said as they stepped out of the house and into the cold.

Sherlock made a face. "They can't all be," he said with an exaggeratedly set-upon tone. "London is not endowed with many intelligent criminals."

John chuckled. "What a shame," he commented.

The detective opened his mouth to reply, already smirking, but his eyes caught something out of John's line of sight. "What is that?" he said, clearly not expecting a response. John turned to look; the surface of a decorative pond in the middle of the carefully-cultured garden glinted in the weak sunlight. Sherlock stepped past John and strode over to it, calling for Lestrade as he went.

John shared a look with the constable as he rushed out the door and the two of them hurried to flank Sherlock and peer over his shoulder. He had crouched in front of the pond and was examining the ground before it. It was quickly obvious what he was looking at; someone had walked all around the pond, leaving clear, heeled bootprints in the damp earth. Sherlock stood, smiling triumphantly.

"Search the pond," he ordered Lestrade, already walking back towards the house. "Someone threw the silver in there, the silver that was missing from the sitting-room. Lady Brackenstall and her maid lied to us. This wasn't a burglary gone wrong. This was intentional, brutal murder."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Deveraux plot_ : in 1601 an attempted rebellion was led by Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex (who was at the time one of the Queen's favourites). The Lord Chamberlain's Men were implicated because they were bribed to perform _Richard II_ , which had similar themes to what was going on at the time, in an attempt to rouse the public to Devereux's view. It was later proved that the Chamberlain's Men only accepted the commission because they were offered a higher pay for it. This event was portrayed - beautifully, if shockingly inaccurately - in the 2011 film _Anonymous_ , except that they used _Richard III_ instead of _Richard II_ , presumably because it's more famous.
> 
>  _The Abbey Grange_ : is obviously based upon Doyle's story from _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_. I've changed things to better fit both the time-period and the overarching plan I have for this story, but it's still extraordinarily recognisable.
> 
> I've tried to make it so that nobody needs to read _Twelfth Night_ to understand what we're talking about, and I will continue to do so with any other plays that I use (EG _As You Like It_ ). However, summaries of these plays can be found pretty much anywhere on the internet. Anywhere that I actually quote the plays, I'm taking the text from The Norton Shakespeare.
> 
> Lastly, a note on _Sally Donovan_ : while women were not generally accepted, and black/mixed-race women even less so, it wasn't as bad as people generally think. I take a lot of my inspiration on this (actually, this entire story) from Stephen Orgel's work, especially _Impersonations_. Having said that, Sally working for/with Lestrade would not be usual or accepted, and I have a backstory for her which I will elaborate on later.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has expressed interest in this story, once again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I was a little disheartened by the lack of response to the last chapter; also, my dear flatmate decided he was ready to write something else in the _Infamia_ 'verse, so [Velut Praeteritus](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1212550) successfully distracted me. As did the inspiration to write a Trek!lock AU, which I may take time to write before the next chapter of this...
> 
> But, I went to see a sadly insipid production of _Macbeth_ over the weekend that gave me many ideas for the case's conclusion, so I'm all re-inspired.
> 
> Once again, this was checked over by the delightful **Silmanumenel** before posting.

John gaped at Sherlock as the detective swept off, his black coat billowing dramatically as he turned abruptly on the spot with another call of, "Come on, John!"

He glanced at Lestrade. "I'd better - I mean, we'd better follow him, I guess," he said awkwardly, already starting back towards the house.

The constable sighed in a long-suffering manner. "I'll have Donovan search the pond," he said resignedly. "I suppose there's always a chance he doesn't find any evidence." The two of them started up a quick pace back to the sprawling stone building. John glanced at the older man, his greying hair sticking up as though he had run sweaty fingers through it. Lestrade shrugged. "If it wasn't the Randall gang, we've probably lost them."

"I'm sorry," John told him.

He snorted. "Never mind, that's what we thought before Lord Brackenstall was killed anyway." Lestrade glanced at him as he walked. "So are you acting with Sherlock, then? Or did you just run into him while he was going after that jewel-thief?"

John laughed. "Both, actually," he replied. "I saw him chasing the thief and so I helped, a bit, and then when he introduced himself I found out that he was actually the person I'm playing opposite in my company's next comedy. Incredible coincidence, really."

"Yes," Lestrade agreed, smiling oddly. "And - the Lord Chamberlain's Men, is that William Shakespeare?"

He sounded impressed; John smiled once more. With many companies, it was the actors that people remembered, but _everyone_ had heard of William Shakespeare . It was quite nice, actually, to hear comments like Lestrade's and not _oh, is that Richard Burbage's company?_ "Yes, it is," he replied. "Will was very impressed by Sherlock's performance in _The Spanish Tragedy_. I had previously expressed my interest in this particular play, and since it features a very prominent female lead, he asked Sherlock to join me."

Lestrade grinned. "Sherlock seems very friendly with you," he commented.

"He does," John agreed. "I can't help but feel extremely flattered by his attention. I have yet to actually see him act, but this side of his life certainly seems to fit his talent."

There was a pause; it wasn't uncomfortable, but John still got the feeling that he had missed the point of the constable's original statement. He looked back at the man for confirmation. "He doesn't have a history of making friends easily ," Lestrade admitted after a moment. "I'm a little curious to know what made him choose you so quickly."

John shrugged. "We are working together - our characters are romantically entangled. We need to spend time together to establish that kind of chemistry."

Lestrade actually laughed. "Sherlock usually _fakes_ chemistry," he told him. "The things I have heard him say of some of his romantic opposites - and yet, when he gets onto the stage you could not tell that an hour ago he was complaining that the man was stupid, boring and smelled like an unwashed sow."

"If you've _quite_ finished talking about me behind my back," Sherlock's voice echoed from the sitting room, not without a trace of amusement. John looked at Lestrade and shared a smile.

The detective was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, the frayed curtain-fringe in one hand, the cork from the bottle of French wine in the other, a satisfied grin on his face.

"Can you point me, John, to the evidence in this room that suggests the burglary was staged?" he asked brightly.

John frowned at him, slightly bewildered. "Me? Why?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, still grinning like an alley-cat on a trash heap. "Humour me," he pleaded.

"Um," John said blankly. "Staged. All right." He gave Sherlock another sceptical look; was the detective trying to humiliate him? Surely he knew that John didn't know any of these things - he was the only person in the room whose job _wasn't_ to do this."She said he came in through the window…"

He walked over to the window and examined it; it didn't look as though it had been opened from the outside, despite the fact that Lady Brackenstall had told them she hadn't remembered opening it. "There's no sign that they forced the window," he commented.

Sherlock's eyebrow twitched upwards again. "Lady Brackenstall fell asleep in this room. She said that she didn't remember opening the window, but she could easily have done so - or a threatened servant could have snuck past her while she slept and opened it. A point worth making, but hardly evidence, John."

John felt himself flush. "Right. Um." He cast around the room before lighting on the detective once more, and the objects he held in his hand. "The curtain fringe," he said hesitantly. "There must be other things in the room they could have tied her up with that wouldn't make such a big noise as pulling the curtains down, surely. That's just… showing off."

The actor smiled triumphantly. "Now we're getting somewhere. Go and look at the curtain."

John frowned. "What?"

"Go and _look_ at the curtain," Sherlock repeated, gesturing towards the window. John shot him an irritated look, but complied.

He bent to the fallen folds of fabric, lifting the rail that had held them to the wall and peering at it. It was immediately obvious what Sherlock had been getting at. "Oh," he said, looking up at Lestrade. "The fringe was _cut_ off with a knife . So why bother creating the illusion of having torn it down?"

Sherlock smirked. "It's better than that," he said, springing to his feet and walking over to join John. "Look at where the railing's come away from the wall. There's no splintering, barely any marks at all."

John looked up; it was far higher than he could reach, but it was easy to see; where the curtain rail had been was only a few scratches, as though it had been carefully dismantled rather than pulled from the wall. "It wasn't pulled down at all," he concluded. "It was taken down gently so that it wouldn't make a huge noise and wake the staff."

The detective nodded sharply, making a satisfied noise of agreement. "That wouldn't have been so unusual if they hadn't tried so hard to cover it up," he concluded. "But why would Lady Brackenstall lie about it?"

"Because she was trying to protect whomever it actually was," John supplied, earning another nod from Sherlock.

Lestrade shifted irritably. "That isn't enough to say it wasn't the Randalls, though," he reminded them, though he didn't sound convinced.

Sherlock gave him a wry look. "Yes, it is," he contradicted, "but that isn't all the evidence. You've seen the Randalls' work before, this isn't anything like it. Who _hits_ a woman to make her _stop_ screaming? Hitting someone usually makes them scream _more._ And have you ever known the Randall gang to take _less_ than was readily available? Even if they realised Lord Brackenstall was dead and panicked, there is much more in this room that they could quickly have ransacked - including the rest of that bottle of wine. No-one breaks into a house and drinks _half_ a bottle of their best French wine."

Clearly on a roll, Sherlock strode to the mantelpiece and picked up the bottle, holding it to the light once more. "Look at this - there are bees' wings all through this liquid. Once you upended the bottle to pour it, it would take careful handling to avoid pouring the dregs and wings into the glasses, and I do not believe that the Randalls would have the patience for such careful handling, especially considering there are dregs in the third glass. And yet there _are_ dregs only in one glass." He held it up to illustrate.

"So what's your alternative, then?" Lestrade said briskly.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him, but he was still smirking. "Only two people were drinking the wine, but they poured the dregs from both of their glasses into the third to make it appear as though all three had been used."

John realised when the detective smiled at him in amusement that he had nodded enthusiastically, perhaps even with a sharp breath in of enlightenment. He felt colour rise to his face. Sherlock's amused smile lingered on him for a moment before he moved on. "Clearly the Lady Brackenstall was lying to us," he finished, levelling a stare at Lestrade. "She drank with the murderer, singular - she knew him."

"Or she _was_ the murderer," Lestrade theorised, frowning, "and she drank with her maid. She seemed very loyal."

Sherlock shook his head slowly. "I don't think either of them had the strength to kill Lord Brackenstall with a blow to the head. It wouldn't surprise me if she was in on the plot, but there was a man here as well. A fairly imposing one - at least six foot three."

John frowned. "How do you figure that?" he asked.

"Because that curtain-rail is three inches higher than I can comfortably reach, so he must be at least three inches taller than I am," Sherlock replied easily, shrugging.

John blinked. "That's brilliant," he said eagerly. Sherlock frowned at him as though he'd never been interrupted before. He pressed his lips together. "Sorry," he apologised.

"Don't be," the detective said, still frowning at him. He paused for long enough that John began to suspect he had lost his thread of reasoning and wasn't sure what to say next, before he took a sharp breath in and skittered off back to the armchair. "If that isn't evidence enough for you, Constable, there is a splash of blood on the chair in which Lady Brackenstall was sitting - the one she claims to have been tied to when her husband was murdered," he said, quickly recovering his composure. "Old blood would surely have worn off the seat by now, even if no-one had cleaned it, and in a house like this that's unlikely. It can only be Lord Brackenstall's, which means that she couldn't have been sitting there when he was killed."

John followed the Constable to the chair and peered down at it; there was indeed a small splatter of brown the colour of dried blood marring the fabric of the seat. Lestrade sighed. "Very well. I ought to question her again."

Sherlock shook his head quickly. "Let us," he said firmly. "We're not official, we can convince her that if she tells the truth we can keep this from you."

"But you _will_ tell me?" Lestrade clarified, frowning sternly at the detective.

Sherlock grinned. "Depends on the truth ," he replied casually. "My guess would be that he was her lover, and he killed Brackenstall to protect her. Arresting them both for that would hardly be _justice_ \- there are far nastier criminals you should be focussing on catching."

Lestrade still frowned, but after a moment he rolled his eyes and relented, shrugging. "You've got a far better chance of getting the truth out of her that way than I do," he admitted reluctantly.

The detective gave him another insouciant grin; he looked so like a child defying their parent that John grinned with him. Sherlock snapped his fingers as he made for the door. "Come on, John!" he said briskly.

John looked at Lestrade. "I'll…" he made a helpless gesture in Sherlock's direction.

The Constable shrugged in defeat. "Help yourself," he said. "He's right, it's likely to be a lover of hers, and there are worse things we can do than feign ignorance on this one case."

He nodded his thanks and followed Sherlock out of the room, rolling his eyes at the smug smile on the detective's face. He was a little embarrassed at the enthusiasm with which he had complimented Sherlock; he had got the impression once or twice that Lestrade was silently laughing at him for it. But from what he'd seen of Sherlock so far, if the detective was irritated or embarrassed by him he would have told him to stop or leave.

Lady Brackenstall was breakfasting on eggs and toast in the dining room, the long table empty but for her as Teresa stood unwaveringly by her side. Sherlock slid effortlessly into the seat opposite her and steepled his hands beneath his chin.

"Lady Brackenstall," he said gravely, "I know that Eustace's death was not accidental."

The Lady sat back in her chair, her spoon falling from her long fingers with a clatter. One corner of Sherlock's lush mouth twitched upwards. "I know that this was not the work of the Randall family, that it was not a burglary gone wrong - I know, my Lady, that you have been lying to me."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her and waited as she glanced up at Teresa, her blue eyes sharp with fright. "Mister Holmes, I have not -"

"Please, my Lady," the detective interrupted unconcernedly. "You said you've heard of my reputation. I _know_ you haven't been truthful, the evidence is all over that room. There's no use in lying to John and I, but there _is_ use in telling us the truth."

Feeling awkward standing at Sherlock's shoulder - and conscious that he was mirroring the stance of Lady Brackenstall's maid across the table - John sat down in the seat beside him, trying to look authoritative . Sherlock glanced at him as he moved, tilting his head almost imperceptibly towards the two women. John widened his eyes - was Sherlock really suggesting _he_ talk to her? Him trying to do Sherlock's job hadn't gone terribly well last time. But the detective dipped his head slightly in affirmation, so John cleared his throat and leaned forwards.

"My Lady," he said quietly, "we want to help you. Sherlock has no obligation to arrest you, or anyone else that had a hand in this. Lord Eustace was not a nice man. I, for one, am perfectly prepared to believe that his murderer was only trying to protect you. Doing a good deed, even. And Sherlock shares my sympathies. If you tell us everything, we can allow the Constable to believe that this really was an attempted burglary, and that will be the end of it." He smiled as the detective nodded at her.

Lady Brackenstall sat back in her chair and carefully arranged her face back into its serene, out-of-place smile, like lifting a mask back in place. "I appreciate that, Master Watson, Master Holmes," she said softly. Her blue eyes gleamed as she stared them down, wide and trembling, almost _pleading_. "But I have told you everything I know. I cannot give you anything else."

Sherlock sighed impatiently; John, aware of both the rudeness his companion was capable of displaying and the vulnerability the Lady was trying desperately to hide, held out a hand to stop him from speaking. "If we must discover the truth ourselves, my Lady, once it is found it is found forever. Constable Lestrade will have no choice but to arrest you, and the man that you are trying to protect."

"Be aware of the path you are choosing, Lady Brackenstall," Sherlock cautioned darkly. John shot him a glance, slightly amused at the almost unconsciously theatrical delivery .

The Lady's smile wavered, but did not fall. "I am, Master Holmes," she said softly. "If I may return to my breakfast? You need not notify me when you and the Constable leave my house."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes again, hesitating as though allowing her one last chance to change her mind. Then he stood abruptly, ignoring the protesting scrape of his chair over the floor. "Very well," he said finally. "I wish you luck, my Lady."

John tried to smile at the two women as he followed Sherlock out of the room, but he didn't quite manage it.

Lestrade, too, looked up at them anxiously from his position by the window when they returned to the sitting-room. Sherlock shook his head briskly. "She didn't talk to us," he said shortly, burying his hands in his coat pockets. "I'll start looking for the man, but I think we ought to keep the search unofficial for now. There may be more to this than we thought." He pressed his lips together, clearly irritated by Lady Brackenstall's lack of co-operation. "John and I need to leave. I've finished with this room, once you're satisfied you can let her get rid of that bloodstain and have the curtains put back up."

Without waiting for the Constable to acknowledge what he had said, Sherlock turned and swept out of the room, black coat flaring up behind him. John shared a smile halfway between apologetic and mutually amused with Lestrade before following once more.

"You don't think he was her lover, do you," John ventured once they were back on the road. "Her eyes when she talked to you, she was practically _begging_ you. There must be more to it."

"Perhaps," Sherlock agreed, nodding shortly. "The question is, was she begging me to believe her - and not go looking for the real killer, - because she was trying to protect a lover; or was she begging me _not_ to believe her, because she's in trouble and needs to be rescued?"

John frowned. He certainly thought that Lady Brackenstall and her maid were reaching out more desperately than they would have if it were simply a question of protecting a lover. But this was Sherlock's field, not his. "Where do we go from here, then?" he asked.

Sherlock drew in a deep breath through his nose, apparently savouring the smell of the long grass and horse manure around them. "We'll have to find him," he said briskly. "If it turns out that he _is_ her lover trying to rescue her, then we'll leave it there. But I don't think we can afford to take that chance." John nodded slowly. Sherlock clapped his hands together in a clear gesture of changing the subject. "From _here_ , however, we need to get you back to the South Bank. This took longer than I anticipated, I'm afraid."

"Of course," John replied absently; he had almost forgotten he still had to perform in _Dream_ that afternoon after all the excitement, first of this new play and then of being so actively involved in Sherlock's work. Going back and performing with Tobias seemed something of an anticlimax. Sherlock smirked as though he knew exactly what John was thinking.

He flicked his coat closed across his chest and hummed thoughtfully. "If we walk quickly we might just have time to run these scripts when we get there," he commented, one hand patting his top pocket. "I believe there's only one scene that we are in together, but all the same."

John nodded emphatically. "I'd like to at least read through it with you," he agreed. "Perhaps sometime this week we could find Molly, as well."

"I have not seen any scenes that the three of us share," Sherlock said, frowning. "Actually, considering the fervour with which Orsino pursues Olivia, it surprised me. It would be an interesting device if the two did not share the stage until it is too late."

He frowned thoughtfully at John, who frowned back; he'd been looking forwards to working more closely with the boy, but it didn't sound as though he would end up working with him at all. Another ugly flicker of irrational jealousy sparked in John's stomach, though he wasn't sure whether it was Ben or Sherlock he was jealous of. He stamped it down quickly, but evidently Sherlock caught the flash of discomfort as it manifested itself in his face. "Are you all right, John?" Sherlock asked.

John forced a smile. "Of course," he said unconcernedly. "I have enjoyed working with Molly, that's all - I'll be disappointed if we only have a little stage time together this time around."

The detective smiled back. "I'm sure it won't be the last time you work together," he assured him. John hoped that was true; he knew that Ben was on his way up in the theatre world, but he hoped that he himself would continue to find the roles to match. He trusted that Will would politely sideline him into minor roles when his fitness for the leads began to decline.

"What will you do this afternoon?" John asked, mostly to change the subject.

Sherlock grinned at his transparency. "Go down to the docks and have a look for anyone who could have been Lady Brackenstall's lover," he said simply.

John raised an eyebrow. "The docks?" he indulged, knowing that Sherlock only hadn't provided the explanation because he seemed to like it when John acknowledged that he couldn't follow his incredible chains of reasoning.

"Subtle variances in her accent and skin tone suggest she came to London by boat ," he explained, smiling smugly. John suppressed his own amused smile at the detective's preening. "Not unusual, but my guess would be that if she was going to find a lover, she would have found it on the boat she arrived on and then not acted on it because she was already engaged. I'll check the records and find the ship, then ask a few questions. I'm sure once I mention that she's in danger, if there is a lover, he'll step forwards."

"I expect so," John agreed.

Sherlock gave him a half-smile for the opinion. "I can try to get my hands on some more material for tomorrow morning," he said after they had walked for a while. John emerged from a lengthy internal debate regarding his sudden jealousy with an inquisitive noise. "More information on the plot of the new play, scripts for _As You Like It_ , perhaps ? If you still want to work on character with me, that is," he added, suddenly looking uncertain.

John grinned. "Of course I do," he answered quickly. "That would be fantastic. We could meet at the inn you're staying at? I think there is a rehearsal on at the Globe tomorrow morning, but the inn should be large enough, don't you think?"

The taller man smiled warmly. "Definitely," he agreed. "So, tomorrow morning, Angelo's Inn?"

"I'll drop by," John confirmed, grinning. Sherlock grinned back. "Did Will give you a name for this play, by the way? It seems odd to keep referring to it as _this new play_."

Sherlock's grin turned amused. "Oh, yes," he said airily. "He isn't sure yet, but he was thinking _What You Will_. Personally, I think that's a bit too similar to _As You Like It_ \- I much prefer the alternate name he's considering."

John raised an eyebrow, letting Sherlock see his amusement as it became clear once again that he wasn't going to elaborate without prompt. "And what's that?" he indulged.

The detective ignored the dig and answered the question instead, still smirking smugly. " _Twelfth Night ."_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry for the wait. I accidentally misplaced bits of this chapter for two weeks. Thanks again to **Silmanumenel** for checking my facts and calling me on my inaccurate metaphors. I think I mentioned this before, too, but all text is taken from _The Norton Shakespeare's_ 2012 edition.

" _Who saw Cesario, ho!"_ John cried, making a sweeping gesture with one arm as though dramatically entering the room.

They had managed to return to the Globe before any of the other players in _Dream,_ although it must have been close - John fully expected Will, at least, to interrupt them before they finished the scene, but Sherlock had insisted on beginning it and John had been excited enough about it to go along.

Sherlock gave him a slow smile and peeled himself away from a column to the front of the stage. " _On your attendance, my lord; here,_ " he supplied sweetly, crossing to John's side.

John knew he wasn't particularly tall, but he'd never acted opposite someone so overwhelmingly taller than himself before. Having to almost crane his neck to look at Sherlock was decidedly odd.

_"Stand you a while aloof, Cesario,"_ he commanded, giving the younger man an indulgent smile.  
 _"Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd_  
 _To thee the book even of my secret soul:_  
 _Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;_  
 _Be not denied access, stand at her doors,_  
 _And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow_  
 _Till thou have audience."_

He tried not to imagine the _unclasping to thee the book even of my secret soul_ , but it was difficult _not_ to paint a picture of Cesario laid out on satin pillows, idly strumming a lute while Orsino fed him truffles and secrets of his love for Olivia. He shook off the image as Sherlock frowned, the space between his eyebrows bending into a crease that John tried for a moment _not_ to think of as adorable, before deciding that Orsino would probably find it so anyway and giving up.

_"Sure, my noble lord,_  
 _If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow_  
 _As it is spoke, she will never admit me,"_ the detective said, apparently puzzled.

John flapped a hand dismissively. Orsino's love for Olivia appeared blinding, utterly senseless and completely deaf to reason. He couldn't help but feel a certain fondness for his own character and his plight. " _Be clamorous,"_ he instructed as though such a thing was simplicity itself, _"and leap all civil bounds_  
 _Rather than make unprofited return."_

Sherlock was still frowning, incredulously, like he was extremely doubtful that Orsino's plan was sensible. " _Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?"_ he asked, raising an elegant eyebrow.

_"O, then unfold the passion of my love,"_ John supplied, sighing and laying a hand on Sherlock's shoulder, watching the young man lean into it slightly as though starved for touch.  
 _"Surprise her with the discourse of my dear faith:_  
 _It shall become thee well to act my woes;_  
 _She will attend it better in thy youth_  
 _Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect."_

Sherlock's eyelashes fluttered shyly. _"I think not so, my lord,"_ he dismissed self-consciously, turning his body language inwards _exactly_ like a woman just having received an unexpected compliment. John smiled broadly and patted the shoulder his hand still lay upon as though reluctant to leave.

_"Dear lad, believe it,"_ he maintained;  
 _"For they shall yet belie thy happy years_  
 _That say thou art a man: Diana's lip_  
 _Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe_  
 _Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,_  
 _And all is semblative a woman's part._  
 _I know thy constellation is right apt_  
 _For this affair."_ He paused for a moment to consider those lines; they were definitely the most overtly appreciative ones he'd seen so far. Orsino seemed to look upon Cesario with a mixture of indulgence and fancy, and John had to consider the similarities with the way a lot of lords kept young male servants, giving them everything they could want to sweeten the nights when they called them into their beds. John had always held mixed opinions of such behaviour. He didn't believe Orsino would ever act on any such desire, but it was certainly there. He suppressed a smile as he ploughed on. " _Some four or five attend him,"_ he said, taking a sharp breath in to signal the change of thought.  
 _"All, if you will; for I myself am best_  
 _When least in company. Prosper well in this,_  
 _And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord,_  
 _To call his fortunes thine."_

Sherlock smiled softly, a touch of wistful sadness leaking into the expression. _"I'll do my best_  
 _To woo your lady,"_ he finished quietly, making the tiniest of bows to John before moving back towards the front of the stage. John almost didn't catch his parting aside.

_"Yet, a barful strife!"_ he lamented to the audience, clasping his hands fretfully.  
 _"Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife."_

John smiled at the line. The first time reading through a new script was always fascinating: seeing just how other characters reacted to the lines you had on paper, like fitting together the pieces of a child's puzzle.

A throat cleared from the steps at the side of the stage. "Not bad," Will Shakespeare commented, climbing the steps to join them on stage. Sherlock didn't jump, evidently having noticed him there before John had. "We'll need to work on blocking, though."

John snorted. "Jesu, Will, it was the first time we'd read it. Give us a break."

Will's eyebrows lifted, his gaze flickering between the two of them. "I thought you two were together all morning," he said slowly.

"We were," Sherlock assured him. "We just got sidetracked on our way here."

The eyebrows rose further, a twist of amusement taking over his mouth. "Sidetracked doing what?" he asked wryly.

"Solving crimes," Sherlock announced, sounding almost proud. John grinned at the two of them. Will laughed. The detective had clearly missed the innuendo that Will had injected into the question - was that Sherlock's apparent scorn of all matters of the heart showing, or was it a more specific ignorance, because he simply hadn't considered John in that particular light?

It was a funny thing, really, John mused as his friend said something flippant about the relative merits of solving crimes over rehearsing theatre. His army fellows had teased him when he first got involved with the Lord Chamberlain's Men, claiming that acting romantically beside boys dressed up as women made him either homosexual or perverted, but John had never considered himself either. His mind did get itself muddled up sometimes, but that was all: only that occasionally he spent so much time _pretending_ to be in love with these boys whilst actually enjoying their company that he started to develop real feelings for them. He had always pushed them aside before they became problematic, though. Most of the people he'd found himself attracted to had been _boys,_ after all, barely into their teens, and John hadn't been comfortable with wanting them.

But at twenty-seven years of age, Sherlock was only three years John's junior, and certainly able to make his own romantic and sexual decisions. John wasn't going to fool himself that the idea of being _able_ to want Sherlock wasn't its own kind of thrilling, quite apart from the fantasia of the man himself.

Not that it made Sherlock more likely to want _him,_ of course. But the matter of not being able to act on any romantic notions became a matter of _not yet._ Being rejected by Sherlock this early in the process would ruin Will's new play, and it definitely didn't deserve that.

John snapped out of his reverie at the sound of the stage door: Sherlock, too, seemed to rouse himself from his thoughts. "I should go," the detective excused suddenly, burying his hands in his coat's voluminous pockets. "You need to start costuming. I'll see you in the morning, John."

"You like him," Will commented wryly to John, watching Sherlock bend to talk to Ben, who had come out onto the stage with a wide grin at the sight of his idol.

John tore his eyes away, knowing that the detective was asking the younger boy to rehearse with him and hating that he resented it. "You saw him before," he replied. "He's brilliant."

The playwright rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"I've known him, what, three days now?" John replied, trying to sound dismissive. The fact that he had to _think_ before coming up with that timeframe gave him away, though. It felt as though he had known the lanky actor for far longer.

Will made a somewhat stern noise of agreement. "Just be careful," he cautioned. "I know what you're like."

John tried to grin insouciantly. "Careful? Me?" he disparaged.

The playwright frowned. "That's exactly what concerns me."

* * *

Sherlock was sitting at the bar inside the originally-named Angelo's Inn the next morning, a veritable stein of steaming liquid nestled between his long-fingered hands, smiling at something the heavyset inkeep was telling him. John pulled off the scarf he had wrapped around his neck and set himself down beside him. "Not a morning person?" he asked brightly.

The detective raised his mug as though proposing a toast. "Perhaps I simply enjoy the luxury of Angelo's tea," he countered. The inkeep slapped him on the shoulder in apparent gratitude, almost causing him to fall off his barstool. Sherlock forced a smile over his wince. "Angelo, this is John Watson. John, this is Angelo. Would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you." John reached to his tiptoes in order to shake one of the man's enormous hands. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he said politely. "I've heard a lot about you and your generosity, allowing Sherlock to stay here."

Angelo beamed again. "But nothing of his own generosity, I'm sure. Without Sherlock I would have been arrested for murder," he growled. He had a deep, gruff voice that John liked immediately.

Sherlock rolled his eyes over the inkeep's shoulder. "I got you arrested for housebreaking," he commented dryly. Angelo only grinned wider. John suppressed a laugh; it sounded as though this was an argument that happened often. Sherlock gave him a smile in return that confirmed the guess.

"The back room's free, Sherlock," the big man said with a grin and what John thought was the tiniest of winks. "You can _rehearse_ in there - unless you think your room would be more comfortable."

The intention of his words was clear; John wasn't sure whether to laugh or be shocked at what he was implying. Sherlock, too, looked uncertain, glancing at John as though afraid he would react badly before affecting an unconcerned smile. "The back room will be fine, thank you, Angelo," he said brightly, taking the last swill of his tea and pushing the mug across the bar as he stood. "John, I have a few scripts in my room - I'm sure Angelo will entertain you while I fetch them."

John returned the innkeep's conspiratorial grin; Sherlock narrowed his eyes at them in mock suspicion before he left with a smile. John immediately spun back on his barstool and faced his new companion. "So you've known Sherlock a long time, then?" he asked brightly, making sure the detective could hear him as he vaulted up the stairs.

Angelo chuckled deeply. "Three years, give or take," he confirmed. "He's a good lad. Still looked like a boy when he saved my life."

Sherlock barely looked his age now; John could easily imagine that at twenty-four he would have barely looked old enough to grow a beard. Not that he could imagine Sherlock's face with a beard. He smiled at the thought. The former housebreaker grinned back. "You're lucky to be acting with him," he added. "I've seen him act."

"You don't have to tell me," John assured him. "I have yet to see him act more than a few lines, but I don't think I've ever connected with anyone as quickly as I have with him. I know I'll enjoy acting with him. And I have enormous respect for any man who can successfully convince others that he is actually a woman."

Angelo's deep laugh rang through the inn once more. "That, Sherlock certainly can," he chuckled. "I don't know how, but he can."

Sherlock cleared his throat from behind them, making John jump. The detective grinned at him when he had turned. "It really isn't as difficult as people think, you know," he remarked. He held up a few bundles of papers tied with black ribbon that John recognised as the cue-scripts that Will kept. "If the two of you are quite finished."

John grinned back at Angelo in farewell and followed his friend behind the bar and into what he presumed was the 'back room'. Sherlock tossed the scripts onto the desk in the room and perched on a low couch, still smiling up at John.

"The difficulty of it," he said airily, tucking his feet underneath him on the settee as he apparently continued their conversation at the bar, "isn't in playing a woman. Any kid off the street can come in and put on a dress and a wig and a high-pitched voice and technically be a passable woman. The difficulty lies in still performing the _truth_ and the depth required to do justice to the lines of someone like Shakespeare, _while_ doing the high-pitched voice and the walk and trying to breathe in the dress."

John frowned at him. "Oh, well then," he said sarcastically. "For a moment there I thought it sounded _hard_."

Sherlock chuckled and waved an unconcerned hand. "I don't think you'd have any trouble with truthfulness," he said. "And a bit of practice with the physicality and the costume would take care of that problem."

"How would I truthfully portray a woman?" John asked scathingly. "I haven't the first idea what being a woman feels like."

The actor raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Don't you?" he asked. He pushed himself up from the settee and snatched one of the sheaves of paper from the desk. "Here. Read this with me."

John looked down at it. "Is this _Hamlet_?" he asked.

"It's Ophelia's cue-script," he replied, pulling his shirt out of his trousers and yanking them askew, running fingers through his hair until it stuck up in wild curls. "Just read the lines, just like you would if Ophelia were a man." John frowned at him, but before he could protest Sherlock had launched himself forwards and grabbed him by the shoulders. " _Soft you now! -  
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons  
Be all my sins remember'd."_

He couldn't help but wonder when Sherlock had apparently memorised _Hamlet_ , but he knew by now that when the actor had an idea, John did not possess the power to move him. He looked back down at the script. " _Good my lord,  
How does your honour for this many a day?"_ he asked politely.

Sherlock smiled placidly. _"I humbly thank you: well, well, well._ "

John tried to memorise the next line, took a deep breath, and looked up at Sherlock. " _My lord, I have remembrances of yours,  
That I have longed long to re-deliver;  
I pray you now, receive them."_

That ritual of courtship he could understand, as men occasionally had to play that part. If a woman had given him something - praise, promises, gifts - it was expected that he would give them back, if he wished to court her _. Truth_ , he reminded himself, trying not to overact any femininity. He looked expectantly at Sherlock, whose inscrutable eyes flashed dangerously.

" _No, not I,_ " he denied. " _I never gave you aught._ "

John recoiled slightly from the fire in his eyes and the vehemence of his denial, as though courtship was something forbidden, something deviant. It was actually very _Sherlock_ , he mused. " _My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,_ " he protested, hearing real indignation in his voice.  
" _And with them, words of so sweet breath composed  
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,  
Take these again; for to the noble mind,  
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.  
There, my lord."_

Sherlock looked at his outstretched hands, disgust written over every inch of his face and posture. " _Ha!_ " he laughed scornfully. _"Are you honest?"_

John glanced back at the script, confused at the abrupt change in subject. He had heard _Hamlet_ , of course, but he had been more focussed on the flaws in Burbage's performance than the action of the scene. Had Sherlock missed a line? " _My lord?"_ he read.

_"Are you fair?"_ Sherlock rebutted instantly.

" _What means your lordship?"_

The actor took another step forward, Sherlock's grey-green eyes boring down into John's face as though searching for his next line inside it. " _That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty._ "

Unnerved by Sherlock's closeness, John took refuge in the script again. " _Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?_ " he read.

Sherlock only snorted. " _Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is into a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof."_ John frowned as he tried to decipher the prose and cope with the look that Sherlock was giving him from far too close, like he had just committed some hideous sin. " _I did love you once,_ " he said, as though the words sat ill on his stomach.

For some reason, the words from Sherlock's mouth made John's own stomach drop uncomfortably. " _Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so,_ " he said, listening to his own voice sound small, betrayed.

" _You should not have believed me,"_ Sherlock spat, " _for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not._ "

John gaped. His reactions to Sherlock - too close, too personal, too _harsh_ \- were extraordinarily telling. He wasn't sure he liked it. " _I was the more deceived,_ " he recited. His voice broke on the last word, to his surprise as much as anyone else's.

_"Get thee to a nunnery,"_ Sherlock told him, giving him a look of such scorn that John shrank back from it, but the actor gave him no pause, following him both physically and verbally, crowding him out with his body and his words. " _Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?"_

" _At home, my lord,_ " John gasped. Sherlock had backed him against the wall with his torrent of verbiage; he couldn't help but feel trapped, completely overwhelmed.

Sherlock's furious whirlwind frown did not abate, his voice gravelly and broken to match the words that John barely tried to make sense of as they flowed from his mouth. " _Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house,_ " he spat. " _Farewell._ "

_"O, help him, you sweet heavens!"_ John cried, but apparently they listened to him no more than they did to Ophelia.

_"If thou dost marry,_ " Sherlock continued, wrath seeming to inflate him like a balloon until he was actually physically bigger, _"I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell."_

It was surprising, really, how well John sympathised with Ophelia; to have someone court her and then so suddenly and so _violently_ turn on her as Sherlock was doing to him. He was even more surprised to feel tears tighten his throat when the detective shuddered slightly and flapped a dismissive hand at him, as though shooing him out of the room. " _O, heavenly powers, restore him_ ," he managed to choke out, quieter and more subdued than he had intended.

Sherlock turned back to him, similarly subdued, looking almost guilty. Then he shook his head. " _I have heard of your paintings, too, well enough,_ " he continued. Though he started soft, John could hear him working himself back into his previous frenzy. _"God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad._ " His curls bounced as he shook his head in disgust, stepping further away from John again until he could almost breathe. " _I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go._ "

And with a last flap of his long-fingered hands, Sherlock stalked back to the settee and threw himself down on it. John stared at him bewilderedly until the detective nodded down at the script still clutched in his hand; reluctantly, John looked down at it and gave Ophelia's final speech.

_"O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!  
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;  
_ _The expectancy and rose of the fair state,  
_ _The glass of fashion and the mould of form,  
_ _The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!  
_ _And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,  
_ _That suck'd the honey of his music vows,  
_ _Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,  
_ _Like sweet bells jangled out of tune, and harsh;  
_ _That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth  
_ _Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,  
_ _To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!"_

To John's surprise, soft applause broke out from the doorway. He spun around sharply, expecting the inkeep or even Will to be there, but he didn't recognise the tall, thin stranger leaning casually against the doorframe, swinging a long black umbrella idly. He flushed instead, clutching the cue-script to his chest as though it could defend him from the dryly amused and slightly condescending look the stranger was directing at him.

"Very good," the man told them in a silvery drawl. "You make a fair Ophelia, Master Watson."

John tried to keep his jaw from falling open. "How do you know my name?" he asked.

The stranger ignored him, instead turning his gaze on Sherlock still stretched obstinately over the settee. "And I do believe you rival Richard Burbage with your Hamlet, Sherlock," he continued as though John had not spoken at all.

The detective rolled his eyes, but his face was set in a resolute scowl. "What do you want, Mycroft?" he snapped.

The tall man smiled a thin-lipped and completely insincere smile. "Can I not simply stop by to enquire after your wellbeing?"

Sherlock lifted a disdainful eyebrow. "I'm certain you _could_ , but you wouldn't. Now tell me, _why are you here?_ "

The man clicked his tongue patronisingly. "Very well. I am here to engage your services in a matter of significant import to the nation."

"I'm not interested," Sherlock rebutted straight away, looking out of the window in an affectation of carelessness. John frowned at the detective. He'd never seen him act like this before, so childishly defensive and yet strangely out-of-control. Whoever this was, he assessed, he had power over Sherlock. And yet the two were obviously familiar with each other, using first names with ease. John recognised the air of ancient rivalry - but why?

Mycroft raised a sardonic eyebrow, as though he could tell that Sherlock _was_ interested but just didn't want to admit it. "It concerns the recent disappearance of a woman from Whitehall -"

"I said I'm _not interested,_ " Sherlock snapped, folding his legs onto the settee and crossing his arms. John tried not to smile at his behaviour, especially when he looked over at the taller man in the doorway to find him smiling knowingly back.

The umbrella continued to swing idly closer to the wood of the doorway, as though Mycroft was playing a game with himself to see how close he could get it before it made a noise. " _Sherlock_ ," he scolded. His voice clearly stated that he wouldn't tolerate argument; it was a voice that made the carefully-conditioned soldier in John stand up straighter as though itching to salute.

Sherlock, on the other hand, flung himself off the sofa with a huffed exhale, adopting a threatening pose and stalking towards the taller man. "Or _what?_ " he growled. Mycroft opened his mouth to reply, but Sherlock stopped quite suddenly, looking up at him in surprise. He leaned forward and sniffed at the other man's jacket. "Is that… _cloves?_ " he asked disbelievingly. John raised an eyebrow; a lot of higher-class men wore fragrance nowadays, the knowledge surely shouldn't have been _that_ surprising. But Sherlock would not be deterred, picking up the other man's hand and examining the sleeve of his shirt, still frowning mightily. "This is a new shirt, professionally cleaned and pressed. Where have you just come from, Mycroft?"

The man recovered remarkably well, drawing in a deep breath and pulling himself yet more upright. "As I told you, Sherlock, this matter is of _national importance_. The request comes from the highest authority."

Sherlock backed off, his face clearing, and took a seat in front of the desk instead, resting his chin idly on one hand. "And how is Her Majesty these days?" he asked casually.

John started, glancing back at the man in the doorway in shock. This Mycroft had just come from _the Queen._ As in, Elizabeth I of England, last of the Tudor line. How had John got himself mixed up in these people - how did Mycroft know his name?

"She's been better, you know," Mycroft drawled patiently.

Sherlock quirked a smile. Even John had known that the Queen was sick; there were rumours that she was unlikely to recover from this illness, but there were always rumours, and John had discounted them. Perhaps they had more truth in them this time. "Tell me about this missing woman, then," the detective demanded, as though he had already forgotten the vehemence with which he had previously insisted he didn't want to know.

Mycroft didn't say _I told you so_ aloud, but the amused curl of his upper lip said it for him. "Lady Frances Carfax went missing from Sussex seven days ago," he began instead, ignoring the irritated press of his audience's lower lip that suggested Sherlock hadn't missed the nonverbal barb. "She lived in Whitehall but was vacationing in Sussex for three weeks when she dismissed her maid without warning. The maid immediately alerted a Justice of the Peace, who put out inquiries to her lodgings in Sussex only to find that she had checked out only three days into her vacation without giving notice as to her next destination. The maid is adamant that Lady Carfax would not have dismissed her in this manner unless something was wrong."

"Did she take the maid to Sussex with her?" Sherlock asked quickly, bringing his other hand up to toy with his bottom lip, pinching it between finger and thumb thoughtfully and tugging on it. John tried not to bite his own in response, because he had a feeling that Mycroft would notice the motion and read more into it than it was, the sudden sense memory of other lips beneath his own fingers, his own lips. John had always liked kissing, and Sherlock had objectively lovely lips.

He shook himself away from that train of thought before it became too invasive.

The tall man smiled tightly and entered the room properly, apparently taking Sherlock's interest in his case as permission. "No," he answered, perching primly on the end of the settee, clasping one knee with his fingers interlocked. "The maid received a letter informing her of her dismissal and a not insignificant sum of money as compensation. The letter was polite but impersonal - I can have it copied for you if you wish - which was not Lady Carfax's style at all, according to the maid."

Sherlock frowned absently. "I'd like to speak to the maid," he said, staring intently at a blank piece of paper in front of him. "She can show me the original letter. A lady's handwriting can be extraordinarily telling."

"Quite," Mycroft remarked sardonically, "as can that of men, of course." Sherlock made a noncommittal face. The taller man smiled. "I can arrange that for you. As well as transport to Sussex."

The detective stood up quite suddenly, even as John's stomach sank; if Sherlock went to Sussex, even _if_ he returned in time to perform _What You Will_ with them, it would prevent them from rehearsing together the way they had planned. "No," Sherlock said firmly, causing John to look up in surprise. "I can't go to Sussex now. I've just committed to another play."

Mycroft's lip curled in distaste. "I have told you before what I think of your little _hobby_ ," he said disdainfully. "This is far more important than the _theatre_."

Sherlock stood his ground, glancing at John out of the corner of his eye. "It's a _hobby_ that I've kept for twelve years, Mycroft, so stop hoping I'll grow out of it. I've always been clear that my work in the theatre comes before my work as a detective."

John frowned; that didn't seem particularly wise. If he had to leave the theatre unexpectedly to pursue a case, the worst that could happen was that they would have to cancel the play. If he had to leave a case un-solved to perform in a play, it was possible that people's lives may hang in the balance; in this case, the life of a lady so highly thought-of that the Queen was invested in finding her. He directed the frown towards Sherlock, who gave him a reassuring grin. "Send Constable Lestrade and his assistant to Sussex," the detective suggested. "I expect we'll find more through the maid than we would from the inn, but the Constable can make inquiries there for us, perhaps take a look around her rooms, though I suspect they've tidied them already. Any evidence that might once have been found there will have been cleaned away in preparation for the inn's next guest."

"Constable Lestrade requires your assistance to solve most of his own cases," Mycroft objected silkily.

Sherlock grinned as though he had not understood the implication. "And he ought not to expect our business relationship to be such a one-sided affair," he finished nonchalantly. "It's more than time for him to offer his own assistance. If it proves that there is something worth investigating properly in Sussex, _then_ I will look at travelling there myself."

John cleared his throat quietly. Both men turned to look at him with vaguely surprised expressions. "Who _is_ Lady Carfax?" he asked, slightly self-conscious under their scrutiny. "I've never heard of her."

"She's Lord Edward Carfax's widow," Sherlock explained, flapping a dismissive hand as though it wasn't relevant. "He was an officer in Her Majesty's Government, not terribly high-up, I wouldn't expect many people to have heard of them."

The umbrella tapped dangerously against the floor as Mycroft narrowed his eyes, but John asked his next question anyway. "Then why is Her Majesty personally involved in finding her? If she's just the widow of a minor government official?"

Mycroft stood up, his expression and posture that of thinly-veiled menace. John wondered yet again who he was. "That is none of your concern, Master Watson."

Sherlock picked up the ball immediately. "But it _is_ mine," he pressed, standing up himself as though readying for a fight. "John's right, the Queen shouldn't be interested in Lady Carfax."

But the other man stood his ground, looking down his prominent nose at the detective. "No, it isn't," he maintained. "Her Majesty's interest in this case is irrelevant to its conclusion. It will only distract you from finding her."

The two stood and stared each other down, Sherlock's fists clenching by his side. John looked from one to the other in bewilderment as the silent battle raged between them; after a moment, Sherlock raised one eyebrow in a bad affectation of unconcernedness and backed down, defeated. "Fine," he said shortly. "Get me an interview with the maid and talk to Lestrade and his employer about going to the hotel in Sussex, and I will find your Lady Carfax. Now get out of my rooms."

Mycroft smiled thinly. " _Manners_ , little brother," he scolded lightly.

John gaped. " _Brother?_ " he repeated, then realised he had said it and clamped his lips together guiltily. Once again, both brothers turned to look at him in mild surprise. Now that he thought about it, it ought to have been obvious - Sherlock's grudging acceptance of his older brother's dominance over him and the clear, seemingly petty rivalry between the two that appeared to be almost entirely instigated by Sherlock. "Sorry," he said awkwardly. "I just… should have picked it myself."

The two looked at each other, frowning almost identical frowns. Then Mycroft took an abrupt breath in. "I expect you to give this matter your full attention, Sherlock," he said sternly. "Theatre or no theatre. A woman's life may be in jeopardy."

Sherlock merely rolled his eyes, but there was a resigned set to his face that belied the expression. John knew it meant that if Lestrade found anything in Sussex, Sherlock would have to throw away _What You Will_.

Mycroft turned to leave, apparently satisfied, but paused in the doorway. "Oh - I have acquired a small portrait of Lady Carfax for you, to assist in the investigation. Obviously it is difficult to locate a person without knowing what she looks like. I suggest you lend it to Constable Lestrade to show to the inn's staff in Sussex as well."

The detective nodded sharply, reaching for the portrait; John caught a flash of pale skin and blonde hair as it changed hands. Sherlock's careless glance down at the frame turned into a prominent double-take.

"John," he called commandingly, lifting the portrait higher, closer to his eyes, his face contorted in surprise and confusion. John glanced at Mycroft before crossing to his friend's side, but the elder Holmes brother's expression was just as nonplussed as his own must be.

Sherlock held out the portrait to him, eyes serious. John frowned at him before looking down at it.

"But -" he started in surprise, a sharp inhale escaping before he could control his mouth. It was a skilled rendition, and the face was jarringly familiar: the blonde hair and pale skin he'd glimpsed as Mycroft handed it over framed clear blue eyes and rosebud lips curled into a secret, mysterious sort of smile. "That's Lady Brackenstall," he protested, looking up at the detective in confusion.

Sherlock's expression had cycled from confusion to concern, his frown intensifying. He looked up at his brother and raised an interested eyebrow.

"Apparently, it isn't."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I will never let myself get this busy again. (I say that, but I know I will. Fan-theatre tributes to Star Wars are worth being busy with.) It's almost semester break and then I'll have a few weeks of nothing but this, so hold please. Thanks to **Silmanumenel** for her historical accuracy checks and catching all the typos from the bits I wrote on my phone.
> 
> Also I'd just like to shout out to **lyingmary** on tumblr, because I just found your posts regarding this fic again and they inspired me to get a move on. Love you.

Mycroft Holmes cleared his throat. "Who is Lady Brackenstall?" he asked silkily, as though the two of them were trying his patience.

For once, Sherlock didn't react to his brother's tone. "Lord Eustace Brackenstall was murdered two days ago. Constable Lestrade called John and I to the scene yesterday - we interviewed a woman who we were told was his wife, Lady Margaret Brackenstall. They'd tried to stage the murder to look like a burglary gone too far, but the deception was fairly transparent. We thought perhaps a lover of hers had decided to free her from him - by all accounts, Lord Brackenstall was a vile and abusive husband. I located a possible lover at the docks yesterday afternoon and asked him to call here for me, but it seems that won't be necessary." He nodded at the portrait in his hands. "This is the woman we questioned. Apparently not even the widow at all, no wonder she didn't want to talk to us."

The elder Holmes arched an eyebrow. "So the question becomes, how the two widows are connected," he commented.

"And what happened to the real Lady Brackenstall," Sherlock added, still staring intently at the portrait.

John cleared his throat gently. "Surely Lestrade had some kind of evidence that she _was_ Lady Brackenstall? Shouldn't it have been obvious that she was an impostor?"

Sherlock shrugged. "There were no portraits of her at the house. She said Teresa called Lestrade, which suggests that they were in place, at the very least, immediately after Lord Brackenstall died, and they must have _known_ he was going to be murdered, even if they weren't involved - although I would say that's unlikely at this stage. I didn't see any other servants when we were at the house - if Lestrade just turned up and they were the only two people in the house, it's a reasonable assumption to make." He tucked the portrait into his coat pocket and grinned falsely up at his brother. "We'll revisit the house. I daresay this won't be the only irregularity we find, now that we know what we're looking for."

Mycroft nodded slowly. "Keep me informed on any progress you make," he ordered silkily. Sherlock lifted a noncommittal eyebrow, and Mycroft - to John's surprise - turned to him instead. "You will make sure my brother stays on track, won't you, John?"

John shifted uncomfortably at the use of his Christian name as Sherlock narrowed his grey-green eyes at him. "I have to focus on the play, Master Holmes, or I will be out of a job," he said finally. Sherlock smirked at his brother as though in triumph.

The elder brother sighed gently. "Very well. I will be keeping an eye on you, Sherlock."

The detective raised an eyebrow and for a moment John thought he was going to argue further, but he only shrugged and dropped it again. "Whatever makes you happy, Mycroft."

"I assure you, none of this makes me _happy_ ," the taller man said with a grimace, as though the word itself was an insult. He swung his umbrella and started for the door once more as though the shift in balance propelled him onwards. "Always a pleasure, little brother," he threw over his shoulder in a parting flourish.

Sherlock rolled his eyes as he shut the door firmly on his brother. "Never a chore," he muttered to himself. "I apologise for the interruption, John."

John tried to smile at him. "We'd finished the scene," he reminded him. "So, your brother is…" he raised his eyebrows in an expression halfway between intimidation and amusement.

"Isn't he," the detective grinned. "He thinks he's so important just because he occasionally gets requests for help from the Queen."

John frowned, wondering what _did_ make a man important if that didn't. "Still, though," he said, finally putting down Ophelia's cue-script, somewhat crumpled from being twisted in his hands. "Lady Brackenstall wasn't Lady Brackenstall."

Sherlock hummed in agreement, a spark igniting in the depths of his eyes as he grinned at John. "The plot has thickened," he agreed in a purposely theatrical manner. "And no matter what Mycroft says, the reason for the Queen's interest in Lady Carfax is clearly the key to this puzzle."

The two of them stood for a moment - it seemed odd to John that Mycroft would attempt to hide that piece from them when it was even obvious to him that it was important - and then Sherlock spun into action, yanking his scarf from the hook on the back of the door. "Come along, Master Watson," he said dramatically, flinging it around his neck. "The game's afoot!"

John grinned. "Follow your spirit," he continued, "and upon this charge -"

" _Cry 'God for Harry! England and St George!"_ Sherlock finished, with a look as though John was being incredibly childish. He chuckled and followed his friend out the door and back into the inn's front room.

Angelo grinned at them as they sped by, now taking a dishcloth to Sherlock's empty tea-mug. "Something happen?" he asked amusedly.

Sherlock's eyes flashed in excitement. "Murder most foul," he pronounced, before sweeping his black coat from the rack by the door and putting it on so that it billowed out behind him. John rolled his eyes fondly at the inkeep, who gave a rolling chuckle.

"So where does _Angelo_ get tea?" John remembered as they stepped into the frigid London street. "I thought it was ridiculously expensive."

The detective smiled. "I haven't asked," he admitted. "Knowing Angelo's previous record, I would rather not find out."

John laughed. "He seems like a fascinating man," he commented. Sherlock smiled again and opened his mouth to reply, but became sidetracked by a scruffy little boy sprinting down the street towards them.

As the boy rushed closer, John saw that it was the same one who had told Sherlock that Lestrade was looking for him to help with Lord Brackenstall's murder in the first place. The boy screamed to a halt in front of them, breathing heavily. "Master Holmes," he panted. "Constable Lestrade is looking for you. He says he's at the Abbey from the last time."

Sherlock's eyes flickered up to John, his engrossed frown returning. "Then we had better join him," he replied, fishing a coin out of his pocket once more. "Thank you, Billy. Coming, John?"

Somewhat abruptly, the two of them made their way down the street, Sherlock flipping the coin jauntily back at the boy as he went and making him scramble after it. "You know what this means, John, don't you?" Sherlock stated, practically vibrating with enthusiasm.

John grinned. "If Lestrade's calling us back, he must have new information. Maybe he's realised that Lady Brackenstall wasn't who she said she was. Which means there might be another clue as to why at the house."

"I _knew_ you were intelligent," the detective said with obvious relish. John chuckled.

"Well, you're very observant," he threw back. Sherlock grinned at him, flashing unusually white teeth. It struck John that there was a difference between Sherlock's smiles when he was a detective, and those when he was an actor. Perhaps it was simply the self-consciousness that naturally came with being watched the way an actor was, but the way he looked at John in the context of the stage was entirely more subdued and shy than the way he was grinning now. There was something more _raw_ somehow about the detective; John had been shocked at the passion and the _energy_ he had injected into his Hamlet, but that was almost exactly what he was seeing, _had seen_ when Sherlock was embroiled in the depths of something criminal and mysterious.

Lestrade met them on the steps of the Abbey Grange, Sally Donovan looking grumpy with crossed arms beside him. Sherlock waved the two of them away as they attempted to greet him. "Yes, yes," he said shortly. "What did you find?"

The Constable didn't look surprised to be cut off so rudely, merely glancing at John in mild interest before answering. "We came back for a routine follow-up and Lady Brackenstall had disappeared. When we interviewed the butler, he told us that immediately after her husband's death, Lady Brackenstall gave all the servants the day off, and none of them have seen her since – even when she dismissed them, she'd locked herself in her bedchamber. I took a missing persons report, and -"

"And his description of Lady Brackenstall didn't fit the woman we met yesterday," Sherlock suggested with a tiny smile.

Lestrade stopped mid-sentence and frowned at him suspiciously. "He described a short brunette with a snub nose, and he'd never heard of Teresa, the maid," he finished. Sherlock nodded shortly. "How did _you_ know that?"

Sherlock smiled, a hint of smugness creeping into the expression. John tried not to roll his eyes. "A member of Her Majesty's Government approached us this morning. The woman's name is Lady Frances Carfax, and she's been missing for a sevennight."

"Foul play, you think?" Lestrade ventured, not looking terribly excited. John thought back to what Sherlock had said the previous day about these things becoming less interesting when you do them as a paid occupation: he supposed that this case becoming more than a simple burglary gone wrong might be exciting for Sherlock, but for the Constable it only meant more trouble.

The detective gave him a rather patronising look. "At least one person has been murdered," he said sternly. "They're not doing this for fun."

He pushed his way past the Constable and his assistant and swept into the house, ignoring Donovan's shout of protest. "Did Lord Brackenstall have a secretary? We need to find out if either of them ever crossed paths with Lady Carfax."

Lestrade rushed after him; John hurried to keep up with his shouted response. "I think the butler was the closest thing - he's in the drawing room, but they're in the middle of cleaning it -"

"We'll need to stop them," Sherlock interrupted, bounding up the stairs two at a time with his coat flying out behind him like a billow of smoke. "Any evidence at all might be the key."

The butler was too-thin and -pale, with jowls like melting wax drooping around his chin. He raised a disapproving eyebrow at Sherlock's whirlwind entrance into the drawing room, casting his washed-out blue eyes reproachfully at Lestrade as the rest of their party entered at the consulting detective's heels. "Really, Constable -"

Sherlock held up an imperious hand. "Stop everyone from cleaning up, I still need the room as it was," he said shortly.

The sallow-faced man opened his mouth in protest, but Lestrade held up a placating hand. "He's with me," he said, sounding thoroughly resigned to the fact. "This is Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, and his friend John Watson."

Lestrade left an odd little pause before the word _friend_ that suggested it wasn't his first choice of descriptor. John frowned, but said hello to the now-scowling butler. Sherlock ignored all three of them, striding immediately to the fireplace and running his long-fingered hands up the corners where it protruded from the wall. The butler looked indignantly at John as though he had the power to rein him in. John shrugged helplessly, hearing Donovan tut behind him.

"Sherlock, what are you looking for?" he asked. Sherlock, predictably, gave no indication that he'd even heard the question, instead lifting the portrait of Lord Brackenstall from above the fireplace to reveal the bare wall beneath.

He exhaled in disappointment. "Some kind of hidden drawer or cupboard," he answered vaguely, dropping the portrait to the carpeted floor and making the butler wince.

"There isn't one," the thin man said irritably. "There is a strong-box in Lord Brackenstall's office, but it was not tampered with. The only things that were taken from this house were the silver from the mantel and a few items of my Lady's jewellery."

Sherlock's head snapped up. "Jewellery?" he repeated sharply. He dropped his hands from sweeping carefully over the top of the mantelpiece. "Where did Lady Brackenstall _keep_ her jewellery?" he asked, stepping intently closer to the butler.

He frowned. "In her bedchamber. I suppose if you wish to take a look…"

But the detective did not seem to hear the second part of the sentence. "Why would they take her jewellery?" he muttered, seemingly to himself.

John volunteered the obvious answer anyway. "To sell," he suggested.

Sherlock's expression wordlessly squashed the suggestion. "The only other thing they took came from the room they broke into, like they just grabbed the first thing they saw," he rebutted, frowning intently. "If they'd wanted money, why did they throw the silver in the pond and then bypass the rest of the valuables in this room for Lady Brackenstall's jewellery in another room, risking waking more servants?"

Not to be put off, John persisted with his own theory. "Maybe they could only sell jewellery for some reason," he said, shrugging. Sherlock's eyes narrowed in preparation to criticise again. "If they kidnapped Lady Brackenstall they would have had to be in her chamber anyway, wouldn't they?" he persisted quickly. "Or maybe they could only take small things that were easy to carry."

The detective frowned. "Then why didn't they take _all_ the jewellery?" he argued, looking back at the butler for confirmation. "You said 'a few pieces'."

The man nodded. "Five in total, from a sizeable collection."

"Maybe Lady Brackenstall went willingly and took them herself," John soldiered on. "Maybe she picked the pieces she knew she could sell fastest and for the most money. Or the ones she couldn't bear to be parted from."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at the butler, who nodded slowly once more. "I am not an expert on such things, but I believe the missing pieces would be the most valuable. They had been in her family for several generations."

The detective leaned back against the mantelpiece, turning a slight smile in John's direction. "Not bad, John," he remarked. John tried not to look to pleased, but grinned briefly anyway. "Could you provide us with a rough sketch of the missing pieces? We can alert shops in the London area that specialise in such things and we will know if jewellery matching your description is brought to them."

The sallow man unfolded his arms briskly. "Of course. I will show you to Lady Brackenstall's chamber - Constable, if you would accompany us?"

John shared a look with Sherlock; evidently the butler still wasn't entirely happy with them wandering around the house unsupervised, and his pointed look at Donovan was just as clear. With Lestrade in tow and his assistant dispatched, he led them down a long corridor and up a flight of stairs before holding open the door to what was apparently Lady Brackenstall's bedchamber. John saw Sherlock's argument immediately - this room was practically at the opposite end of the house from the drawing room. Anyone coming through the house had to pass by several rooms through which John could glimpse shelves of presumably-antique trinkets and a cupboard housing the family's silverware; surely the cutlery in particular would be just as easy to carry as pieces of jewellery.

Lady Brackenstall's bedchamber was simply furnished, draped in midnight blue with dark furniture and a white jug of water beside the bed. Sherlock looked around it with eyes narrowed, appraising it. There was no sign of any kind of struggle, but then Lestrade had said that Lady Carfax had been resting when they had arrived at the house the first time, so he supposed there had been plenty of time to straighten the room out if it had needed it. Sherlock lifted an eyebrow at the room after a moment's appraisal. "It doesn't look as if Lord Brackenstall visited his wife's bed particularly often," he observed quietly.

The butler coughed delicately, evidently embarrassed by the subject. "I do not believe that he visited her at all," he said quietly. "Their marriage was one of convenience, not passion. I am sure that she was grateful for it - Lord Brackenstall was not a gentle man."

Sherlock nodded. "So I've heard," he agreed. "But _you_ were not unhappy in your position?"

"My Lord had no complaints about my service, and so always treated me well," the man replied, as though the suggestion that Lord Brackenstall might have treated him with the same dismissive violence as he apparently treated his wife was offensive.

John couldn't help but bristle. "Are you suggesting Lady Brackenstall provoked him to violence?" he asked.

The butler frowned sternly. "It is not my place to speculate, but it was plain to all of us that my Lord and Lady had very different expectations from their marriage."

Sherlock lifted an elegant eyebrow. "Where did she keep her jewellery?" he redirected with sugary politeness. John flushed slightly at the unspoken rebuke.

The man opened a mirrored door in the room's dressing table to reveal an ornate jewellery box and several pendants hanging from hooks on the door. John drew in an impressed breath through his teeth. The ones that had been left behind were probably more valuable than everything John owned. Sherlock bent to examine the box, his dark curls tumbling across his forehead and obscuring his frown of concentration.

"So Lady Brackenstall stood up to her husband often?" he passed to the butler, picking up the jewellery box and peering at the lock.

The thin man's pale lips pursed. "She held her own against him. If he had had his way she would have spent most of her time in this room."

Sherlock pulled a small, thin sliver of steel from his pocket and slid it into the jewellery box's lock, earning him an indignant cry from the butler. "Look here, I really must insist -"

"I'm not the first one to try to pick that lock," the detective interrupted, withdrawing the instrument and replacing the box in the cupboard. "It wasn't Lady Brackenstall who removed those jewels."

The butler rearranged the jewellery box with a frustrated mutter of _really_. Sherlock ignored him. "She did have a social circle, though, didn't she? Her husband wasn't successful in cutting her off from society. She had _friends_."

"Barely," the man snorted. "She attended a weekly drawing class with a few other ladies. That was the only time she left the house without her husband, but he took her out fairly often. They would have dinner in town, or attend functions related to his work."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes critically. "Was the name _Carfax_ ever mentioned by either of them?"

The butler considered. "If it was, it was not mentioned in front of me."

John's heart, which had picked up in anticipation, sank once more. Sherlock nodded slowly, looking disappointed. "You might ask my Lady's drawing instructor," the sallow-faced servant suggested. "If she knew anyone called Carfax, it would be through that class. And if it was an acquaintance of Lord Brackenstall's, you might find mention of him in his office."

"Take me to the office," the detective insisted, casting one last look around the bedchamber.

Lestrade hurried after them, grabbing at Sherlock's arm to hold him back. "Who _is_ this Lady Carfax? Why is she important?"

Sherlock gave him a brilliant grin. "I have no idea," he replied. The Constable sighed in annoyance.

John tried to be a little more helpful. "She was a widow, so it's more likely she knew Lady Brackenstall than her husband, isn't it, Sherlock?"

The detective frowned. "More _likely_ , but not certain. I doubt we'll find anything in the office, but it never hurts to check. Finding people close to Lady Carfax may prove more difficult - I'd appreciate your help on that case, Lestrade."

The shorter man almost stopped in his tracks, instead missing a beat in his steps, his jaw slack. "Say that again?"

"You heard me," Sherlock said, not without a touch of grudging amusement.

Lestrade grinned at him. "You need _my_ help?" he repeated playfully. John let out the tiniest of chuckles.

Sherlock glared at him, though the corners of his mouth still twitched good-humouredly. "I don't have the time to do the groundwork on this one, but the Government is highly invested in the recovery of Lady Carfax. My brother will probably attempt to contact you and send you to Sussex to investigate her disappearance."

He fell silent as they caught up with the butler, who stood in what John presumed was the study door, watching them with shrewd eyes. Sherlock returned his gaze almost sullenly, clearly communicating that whatever was being discussed was not going to be discussed within his earshot. John smiled slightly. "My Lord's office is through this door," the man said without acknowledging Sherlock's silent reprimand, opening the heavy door to reveal a fastidiously neat study, dimly lit despite the large window backlighting the huge desk.

"Can you tell me what exactly Lord Brackenstall did within the Government?" The detective asked, standing behind the chair at the desk and surveying the few papers stacked in neat piles.

The butler shrugged. "I'm afraid not," he said carelessly. "Lord Brackenstall did not involve me in his work. I do know that it was highly confidential and I will have to ask you not to peruse any papers marked as such, or I will involve the government directly."

John wasn't sure that the thin servant had the authority to do that, and judging by Sherlock's tiny smile, the detective wasn't either. Lestrade, though, set a little heavier into his defensive stance, as though to bodily prevent Sherlock from looking at anything confidential. Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him, but moved straight on to rattling the top drawer of the desk without further comment.

"My Lord kept that drawer locked," the butler commented, looking mildly pleased. "The most important of his documents are kept there."

Sherlock pursed his lips slightly in annoyance, but dropped to his knees in front of the drawer to peer into the keyhole. "It doesn't appear to have been forced or picked," he said perfunctorily. "I assume Lady Brackenstall didn't have a key?"

The sallow-faced man shook his head silently. Sherlock straightened. "Then I think we can safely assume Lord Brackenstall's work is not the connection. Did he have a diary or appointment-book?"

John fell to a broader look around the office as the butler rifled through a second desk-drawer, from the burnt-out fire in the grate to the dusty books in their dark wooden shelf to the fancy clock hanging on the wall in clear view of the desk.

"Sherlock," he said suddenly. The detective glanced up from the half-sized pocket-book he had been handed. He gestured to the clock. "I have to go. I'm going to be late."

Sherlock stared at it for a moment. "Oh," he finished blankly, as though the information had caused his mind to stall slightly like a horse at a fence. He closed the pocket-book with a snap. "Of course, John, forgive me." He handed the book back to the butler without looking at him and strode back around the desk. "Let me accompany you, I have a few things I wish to discuss with Master Shakespeare."

John was dimly aware of Lestrade shifting in surprise as he blinked at his friend. "But you're not finished here," he protested.

The detective looked from John to Lestrade. "I told you," he said dismissively, shrugging, "if anyone was going to steal anything from this office, it would have been in that drawer, which hasn't been forced. We know the connection between the two families must be with Lady Brackenstall. The most productive thing we can do now is visit her drawing-master, and the majority of ladies' drawing instruction takes place near the Thames bank. Where was it that Lady Brackenstall took her classes?" he threw to the butler.

"Gracechurch Street, by the bridge," the man replied, looking slightly relieved that they were proposing to leave. "I believe her instructor's name was Miracle."

Sherlock nodded. "So my best line of inquiry is to travel to Gracechurch Street, by the bridge. And if I can complete my errands on the South Bank at the same time, _and_ have company walking across London, so much the better."

John cracked half a smile to the bright one offered him. "Fair enough," he concluded. "Let's get going, then."

The detective's smile widened for an instant before vanishing into a businesslike expression. "Thank you for your time," he said considerately to the butler. John raised an eyebrow at Lestrade, who snorted and led the way out of the house and back into the weak sunshine. Donovan looked at him expectantly.

"Sherlock, I still need to know exactly what's going on, here," the Constable said wearily, sounding as though he was expecting a rejection.

Sherlock, conversely, nodded. "Of course," he said amiably. Lestrade narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "My brother engaged John and I this morning to find Lady Carfax on behalf of the Queen. When it became apparent that previous commitments would not allow us to investigate certain aspects of the case, I suggested that he contact you. Lady Carfax checked out of the hotel in Sussex where she was vacationing several days early, dismissed the maid that she had left behind in London, and has not been seen since. John and I cannot take time away from the theatre to travel to Sussex."

The Constable frowned. "But I can? My job's important too -"

"But this _is_ your job," Sherlock interrupted. "If someone as high-up in the Government as Mycroft asks you to go to Sussex, then that's your work. You can hand any other cases you have onto another Constable for a few days. If John and I have to go, that's two plays that miss lead actors. Maybe they'd find someone else who isn't as good to play Oberon, but no-one else knows the script for _Twelfth Night_ yet and they couldn't learn it in time for opening."

There was silence for a moment as Lestrade glared at Sherlock. "I'm sure my brother will compensate you for your services," the detective added after a moment.

Lestrade sighed. "It doesn't matter," he admitted. "You're right, if a senior Government official asks me to investigate something, I don't have a choice. I don't have your flexibility around taking cases." Sherlock looked smug for a moment, as if he was about to say something scathing about the Constable's choice of profession. John nudged him with his elbow. "So," the stocky man said abruptly. "Gracechurch street?"

* * *

John was the last person to arrive at the Globe; he winced at the frown on Will's face as they closed the stage door quietly behind them. "Sorry, Will," he said quickly. "Sherlock and I were rehearsing together and then we got called back to the crime scene we were at yesterday, another woman's disappeared and I just lost track of time."

Shakespeare shook his head resignedly. "It's fine," he said, cracking an amused grin in Sherlock's direction. "It was just surprising when you weren't an hour early and no-one had heard from you."

"John!"

He looked around at the sound of Ben's voice to see the boy already in full costume, bouncing towards them. His eyes lit up at the sight of Sherlock. "I told you he'd be here," he shot at Will, who rolled his eyes. "Hi, Sherlock."

"Molly," the detective greeted, a note of fondness colouring his voice.

John grinned at the young actor, chasing off the flash of jealousy he was coming to regard as normal with the reminder that Sherlock had chosen to be with _him_ all morning. "I'll go and costume up, I suppose," he said, shrugging off his jacket.

Sherlock smiled at him, a tight, guarded expression as though there was more he wanted to express but wasn't quite sure how. "Thank you for this morning, John," he said after a moment.

"Thank _you_ for this morning," he replied emphatically. All he had done was join in with what the detective would have done anyway without him. He could understand how it might be more rewarding with someone as goofily enthusiastic as John had been to accompany him, but the overenthusiastic praise John had provided over the past few days couldn't match the glimpse into Sherlock's theatrical world that he himself had been granted. Sherlock's smile widened until John thought it might be genuine.

"Have you got the first act of the script yet, Sherlock?" Ben asked enthusiastically as John walked away to find the costume assistant. "I thought you might… like to rehearse with me one day?"

He couldn't help but look back at the shy, hesitant tone to the boy's voice; Sherlock caught his eye for the briefest of moments before beaming at his next co-star. "I would like that," the detective replied. "Do you have an apprenticeship outside of the theatre? Tell me the times where you are available."

John grit his teeth and moved on without comment: he knew it was completely irrational to not want the two of them to rehearse together. They had more stage time together than John did with Sherlock, and rehearsing with someone he admired so much could only make Ben more inspired and determined. It was odd how possessive he had become of Sherlock after barely knowing him for a week.

The costume assistant, as usual for this close to opening, was particularly elusive; John wandered around for a while before he spotted Tobias sitting dejectedly on a stool, trying to fasten his own wig. The boy's eyes were rimmed with red, as though he had been crying. John immediately stopped his search and knelt beside his co-star.

"Tobias?" he said quietly.

The boy looked up at him and sighed, dropping his hands from his hair. John automatically took up the wig-fastening duties. "Are you all right?" he asked, leaving one hand on his co-star's shoulder as some kind of support. Tobias leaned into it, his eyes sliding closed.

"I'm fine. It's not anything to do with the play," he said, allowing John to tip his head forwards to fix the wig at the nape of his neck.

John frowned. "You can talk to me about things that are bothering you outside the play, you know," he told him firmly.

The boy snorted. "John, you don't have to be nice to me just because no-one else is."

"I'm not," John protested automatically. He'd never believed that Tobias deserved to be ridiculed quite the way he was: sure, the boy couldn't act, but he _tried_ , and when he tried he was passable. And he was quite nice to talk to once John made the effort. "I'm nice to you because you're nice to me. If you need to talk about anything -"

Tobias pushed his hands away from the wig. "I don't," he snapped. "You can't help everyone, John."

He stood up, knocking John's arm out of his way, and stormed off, his wig hanging lopsided. John stared after him with his jaw hanging open.

"What was that?" Will's voice asked from behind him.

John twisted himself onto the stool Tobias had so vehemently vacated and frowned. "I have no idea," he replied. He accepted the toga that the playwright handed him without looking at it. " _Something's_ wrong with Tobias."

Shakespeare snorted. "You're just getting that now?" he said flippantly. John glared at him.

"He's a good kid," he insisted. "He's just clearly in the wrong profession, and he knows it. I've never seen him like this."

The playwright hummed in thought. "Well, you're a detective now, John," he said with no small trace of amusement. "I'll leave it in your capable hands."

John chuckled. "I'm _definitely_ not a detective," he retorted. "Really I've just been Sherlock's chorus, cheering him on." Shakespeare gave a short bark of laughter at the analogy. "He said he had some things he wanted to discuss with you?" John prompted.

"He wanted to suggest someone he's worked with before to play his twin brother," John's friend replied easily. John began to change into his toga in an attempt to not look too interested, but was met with a wry smile for his efforts. "And he had a few suggestions for further development of _What You Will._ He's quite pushy, isn't he?"

John had to laugh. Sherlock had done nothing but push all day; he supposed the only reason he hadn't minded was that none of the pushing had been directed at him. "Were his suggestions any good?" he rebutted.

Will smiled smugly. "A few of them," he said with an indulgent air. "Most of which I'd already thought of."

"Oh, the cleverness of you," John sighed mock-wistfully.

Shakespeare shoved him playfully. "Oh, well," he said brightly. " _The nuptial hour draws on apace_. I'll go and make sure Tobias can keep his wig on straight. The audience should settle in shortly - shut us in, would you, John?"

John frowned after him. Perhaps he was overreacting, still caught up in Sherlock's world of crime and deception. Tobias was thirteen - John could remember a thousand tantrums of his own at thirteen, many of which had had absolutely no purpose. He sighed and leaned forwards to close the stage door.

Sherlock waved lazily at him from a seat at the base of the stands, the drawing master on Gracechurch street apparently forgotten. John rolled his eyes, but grinned at his friend and waved back anyway.

It was slightly baffling, but it was still incredibly _flattering_ how willing Sherlock was to pass over his work for him - a sign, perhaps, that he was not the only one whom the strength of this friendship had taken by surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> The little speech after "the game's afoot" is from _Henry V_ \- I didn't realise until I was typing it out that it's also used in this context in the 2009 Holmes film with Robert Downey Jr. Apparently I wasn't being as original and clever as I thought. I am really, really enjoying the tiny tidbits of Shakespeare that fall so naturally into these conversations, though. ( _Murder most foul_ is also from _Hamlet_.)
> 
> I will also readily admit that the dynamic between the Lord and Lady Brackenstall, up to and including her involvement in drawing classes with a man named Miracle, was inspired by (all right, taken pretty much straight from) _The Vesuvius Club's_ dreamy Mrs Midsomer Knight. I'm toying with including more of that storyline. Hey, if I can pick and choose from ACD's work, surely Gatiss' is just as good...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite as quick as I'd hoped, but I had a breakthrough on a later part of this story and it was rather hard to stick to this chapter… I now have the bare bones of the entire thing planned out and only a few minor plot points to iron out, so hoorah! Thanks, as always, to the lovely **Silmanumenel** for her checks and help.

_"Come, my lord, and in our flight  
Tell me how it came this night  
That I sleeping here was found  
With these mortals on the ground."_

John heaved an inward sigh as Tobias took three stuttering runs at his final line and shied away from John's touch as they danced together, tripping over the hem of his train as they did so. This afternoon's performance had been their most dismal yet. John had been distracted by Tobias' distraction, the boy clearly wishing he could be anywhere but on a stage with John.

He couldn't help but worry - even if it was something petty, John _liked_ Tobias despite his acting and preferred to see him happy.

The play dragged on like an applecart with a loose wheel, but eventually John found himself in the wing, watching Ben deliver his final monologue. To his credit, the young Goodfellow had given one of the best performances John had seen from him, despite the distraction of the rest of the fairies. John couldn't help but think that Sherlock's presence in the audience had spurred him on; the detective had watched attentively as the two of them tripped and stumbled around each other, and John was a little embarrassed that his new friend had watched _that_ particular performance.

Once the audience burst into applause - only slightly muted from their previous performances - John turned to say something to his co-star, perhaps try again to comfort him, but Tobias was already gone, leaving his wig and dress hanging over a nearby stool.

"Someone is going to have to confront that boy before he goes on stage tomorrow," Will commented, sidling up behind John with a heavy frown.

Ben popped up at the playwright's elbow, scratching thoughtfully at an ivy leaf on his sternum. "Is he sick? That wasn't normal for him."

John shook his head. "I don't know, but I think I blew my chance to find out. I mean, you probably saw on stage that he's not particularly fond of me since I asked about it."

Will sighed. "Maybe he'll sort it out on his own overnight," he suggested hopefully. "And if he doesn't, I'll talk to him tomorrow."

He hoped it wouldn't come to that - John knew that his friend would try his hardest not to hurt Tobias, but if everything else failed, he knew Will would be forced to mention how shabby the boy's work had become, and possibly threaten him with being replaced. He tried to shrug the matter off. "So, Molly," he said in as light a tone as he could, "I notice Sherlock stuck around. He's been around _me_ all morning, it wouldn't be anything to do with _you,_ would it?"

Ben blinked, his lips turning up in the tiniest of smiles as though he hadn't considered the idea. "I don't know. He didn't tell me he'd be here. He left me right after you turned up, said there was a Constable waiting for him outside."

"Yes, I thought there was," John mused. He wondered what had happened to Lestrade and his unusual assistant. "Still, though - he wants to rehearse with you?"

The boy beamed, his dark eyes lighting up. "Yeah," he said brightly. "He said he'd been meaning to ask me before I asked him. _Sherlock Holmes_ wants to rehearse with me - I used to fantasise that he would when I was younger."

John smiled uneasily. Even when he set his own jealousies as far towards the back of his mind as they would go, he wasn't sure that Sherlock encouraging Ben's obsession was a good idea. The boy already idolised him, and he wasn't sure that the detective would recognise his infatuation in time to stop Ben's heart from breaking.

"Well," he said brightly, catching sight of a black coat in the corner of his vision, "here he comes. For never having performed in the Globe before, he certainly acts like he owns the place."

Ben laughed lightly. "I think it's fantastic how confident he is all the time. It's incredible to watch on stage."

John had to agree, so he said nothing, instead lifting an eyebrow to acknowledge the detective when he made a beeline for their group. "Evening, Sherlock," he said, letting the wry amusement bleed into his voice. "What happened to the drawing instructor?"

Sherlock shrugged, an irritated expression crossing his face as though this was a sore point for him. "We found his studio and knocked, but no-one answered us."

"And you let that stop you?" John asked incredulously, raising a light-hearted eyebrow.

The detective grinned. "Usually, no. But I couldn't break in with a Constable right beside me. If he didn't arrest me on the spot then he could be implicated. So they left, and I thought I may as well come back here. We'll go back tomorrow, it looks like there's a class there in the morning. You could join us," he added, flashing John a smile. No doubt Sherlock knew the exact likelihood of John turning that down. "Molly and I are meeting here at noon to look at _Twelfth Night_ ; I arranged to meet Lestrade at the studio at ten. It's difficult to miss if you want to meet there."

John got the feeling that there was another option that Sherlock wanted to offer him, but the inn where he was staying was further out of John's way than John's flat was out of Sherlock's, and Will hadn't released any new part of his play that they might meet and rehearse. John hadn't missed the fact that the detective had somewhat stubbornly persisted in calling it _Twelfth Night,_ despite its author's preference for another name. "I'll be there," he said instead. He found the idea of Sherlock and his more official counterparts investigating the case without him strangely panicking, as though without him they were likely to miss something that he would be able to pick up on. _Ridiculous_ , he told himself, shaking it off. As if he could notice something that Sherlock Holmes did not.

"Good," Sherlock confirmed with an eager smile, immediately spinning onto the next thing. "Molly," he greeted, as though he hadn't noticed the boy looking adoringly up from beside him since he arrived. "You surpassed yourself tonight. Something I cannot say of your co-stars; something troubling Anderson, John?"

He sighed. "I'm not sure," he replied, suppressing a frown as he watched Ben's face light up at the praise.

"It's most likely just stress," Will speculated. "We did place a lot of expectation on the boy, putting him opposite _you_ two _._ I can't help but feel slightly guilty. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness _thrust_ upon them, and are magnificently unprepared."

A thoughtful look came over his face. John chuckled as the expression settled on him. "It was good," he confirmed sagely.

Will nodded. "It _was_ good," he agreed, his fingers twitching slightly. "And I know exactly how I could use it. Not too grandiose, slightly humorous…" John fondly watched his old friend wander off, muttering to himself and tapping his fingers against his sides. He chuckled once more.

"Inspiration," he commented sagely. He turned towards Sherlock, expecting to meet with a sarcastic comment and then depart together.

The detective, however, was watching Will walk away with an odd expression on his face; when John turned to him he seemed to shake himself before smiling at John. "Inspiration indeed," he agreed, his voice still slightly absent as though watching the playwright had made him realise something momentous.

John cleared his throat. "Well," he said slowly. "I think that's our cue to leave."

Ben finally pulled a shirt on over the leaves painted onto his torso. "Would you join us for a drink, Sherlock?" he asked eagerly, grinning up at the older actor.

Sherlock frowned in a manner suggesting he couldn't think of anything worse. "I don't think so," he said shortly. "I'll see you both tomorrow."

He swept off quite abruptly, leaving Ben to turn his wounded look on John. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

John clapped him on the shoulder. "I don't think so - I can't imagine Sherlock enjoying himself in the _Elephant_. I don't think that's really his sort of thing." Ben leaned disconsolately into his side, rubbing a green smear of paint onto the costume he hadn't taken off yet. "If you still want a drink, I'll shuck this toga and be back in a moment."

The boy smiled at him, but it had lost some of its enthusiasm. "All right," he said forlornly. "I guess I'll see him tomorrow."

* * *

Miracle's studio was almost at the end of Gracechurch street; John had barely stepped off the bridge before he caught sight of Sherlock's black greatcoat flapping in the morning breeze. The detective greeted him with a friendly clap on the shoulder and a bracing 'good morning'.

"Morning," John returned. "Lestrade not here yet?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "That's the Constabulary for you," he said dryly.

John grinned; of the very few run-ins he'd had with the Constabulary before he'd met Sherlock, they had almost always arrived too late to make any real difference. "True," he concluded. "How can we pass the time?"

The detective returned the grin. "I brought Rosalind and Orlando's cue-scripts from _As You Like It_ in case we finished here early," he said, fishing the tight roll of paper from an inside pocket of his coat. "We could - oh, never mind."

John looked around to see the Constable and his unusual assistant rounding the corner at a run, looking severely flustered. "Beg pardon,Sorry," he panted, doubling over as he reached them. Donovan forced a smile at John as she pushed her voluminous hair out of her face. "We were… unavoidably detained."

"You've been speaking to my brother," Sherlock concluded, sniffing slightly. Lestrade straightened, frowning, but the detective beat him to the question. "Oh, come on. You're covered in horse hair. Clearly you're not accustomed to riding, but the person who _detained_ you insisted on a swift mode of transportation back here and was wealthy enough to provide it, and I already knew my brother would attempt to speak to you because I was the one who suggested it. Can we go in now? His class finished ten minutes ago, all the pupils have gone."

Lestrade didn't attempt to answer, which was probably the wise choice as Sherlock had already swept off, waving the three of them into the slightly unkempt building. He gave John a weary sort of expression instead, which John accepted sympathetically.

Christopher Miracle was a pale-skinned blond, built solidly and with clean lines, like some sort of Roman marble. He looked up slightly warily when they entered his office, but the expression lasted only for the tiniest of moments before he hitched a jovial smile into his elegant face and stood to greet them. "Gentlemen," he said fondly, his voice ringing with the lilt of the upper classes. His eyes widened as he noticed the embroidered patch on Lestrade's chest. "Constable," he corrected himself. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

The lithe woman who had shown them into the room cleared her throat demurely. "I'll leave you to it, Mister Miracle," she said gently.

The artist flapped a hand at her easily, but John noticed his hazel eyes flicker fondly to the vicinity of her waist as she left the room. He suppressed a smile. "We have a few questions about a pupil of yours, Mr Miracle," Lestrade said quickly, shooting a glance at Sherlock as though warning him to keep quiet. "Lady Margaret Brackenstall."

Miracle nodded, not looking surprised. "I heard that she went missing after her husband died. Terrible business. I'm not certain I can give you any information you don't already have, Constable."

"Even so," Lestrade persisted. "Might we sit down? This is my assistant, Sally Donovan, and Sherlock Holmes and his colleague John Watson, they're consulting for me with this case."

The artist shook John's and Sherlock's hands and dipped a quick bow to Donovan. To John's surprise, he looked neither shocked nor offended at her presence. "I've heard of you, of course, Master Holmes," he said brightly. "Helped a friend of mine out with the kidnapping of his aunt. Turned out she'd run off with the local innkeep, can't believe he didn't guess it. Bloody good job." When he reached John, he frowned and said, "Have I seen you somewhere before, Master Watson?"

John smiled. "I act in the Globe," he explained. "With the Lord Chamberlain's Men."

"Shakespeare," Miracle concluded. John nodded, grinning. "You did _Richard III_ last winter?"

Sherlock shifted impatiently, but John could still see a tiny proud smile on his face. He nodded again. "We did. However, Mr Miracle, I'm here today to assist the Constable in the investigation into Lady Brackenstall's disappearance."

The broad-shouldered man sobered with a tight smile. "Of course. Constable - if you would all like a seat…" he gestured to the chairs around the desks that formed a circle, with a space in the centre where a model might stand. He let Lestrade sit in the closest one, but when Sally Donovan went to sit beside him, the blond cut in front of her to pull it out for her as though she were a well-born lady. "Miss Donovan," he said politely.

She raised an eyebrow at him in a rather challenging manner, clearly unused to the courtesy, but sat in the proffered chair anyway. Miracle pulled a further chair around so that he sat in the space for the model, legs crossed idly at the knee. Sherlock bent forwards and placed his fingertips together, lightly depressing the swell of his lower lip. He examined the painter thoughtfully. "We believe Lady Brackenstall's disappearance is connected to the disappearance of another young widow," he said, frowning sternly. "Have you had any acquaintance with Lady Frances Carfax?"

Miracle's eyebrows lifted. "She attended the same drawing class as Lady Brackenstall," he told them, sounding genuinely surprised. "I had no idea she was missing - she didn't attend every class as it was."

Sherlock, by contrast, looked delighted. "Did the two women ever speak to each other?"

"Often," Miracle admitted. "Lady Brackenstall was quite a reserved woman - a result of her husband keeping her so close, I imagine - and Lady Carfax took pity on her, took her under her wing. The two were quite close friends by the last time that I saw them."

John shared the detective's triumphant look as it was directed at him. "And when was that?" Lestrade asked, giving the two of them a wan smile in acknowledgment.

The artist frowned. "Lady Brackenstall attended my class last Thursday. Lady Carfax, perhaps the Thursday before that, perhaps even one more week ago. As I said, she was not a regular attendee."

"Would you go so far as to say that the two were confidants?" The Constable asked.

Miracle seemed to think about this. "I would say for certain that if Lady Brackenstall had a secret, Lady Carfax knew about it. The other way around I am less certain about, but it is entirely possible."

Sherlock let out a long, controlled breath. "Interesting," he said softly. "Well, that certainly solidifies a few things. What can you tell us about your impression of Lady Carfax's character?"

"She is an extraordinary woman," the artist mused. "A real beauty, and distinctly well-bred. She gave the impression of extreme control, as though her every movement was carefully considered before she made it. I have always speculated that such control comes from hiding some dark secret, but that is simply the romantic wish of an artist - there was never any evidence to suggest as such."

The detective raised an eyebrow. "Until now," he agreed.

Miracle grinned boyishly, as though he did not believe it. "Perhaps. Of the Lady Brackenstall I had no such spectacular notions. She had neither the beauty nor the talent of Lady Carfax. A distinctly shy and oppressed woman."

John remembered the tall, confident woman they had spoken to at the Brackenstall residence. He could easily imagine a lesser woman - less beautiful, less poised, less worldly - being caught up in adoration of her. It sounded jarringly familiar. He glanced over at Sherlock, who was absently tapping his long fingers against his lips. The detective hummed thoughtfully.

"When last you saw either lady, did they seem troubled? Did either of them act any differently from any other class they had attended?" he asked slowly.

The artist tipped his head back over the chair, shaking out his shoulder-length blond hair and making a noise of consideration. John raised an eyebrow in Sherlock's direction at the display. The detective smiled at him in amusement. "I don't believe Lady Brackenstall acted any differently," the stockier man said after a moment. "But as I have said, I did not pay her as much attention as some of the other members of the class, believing her artistry to be beyond my help. The last time I saw Lady Carfax was some weeks ago, and I am not sure I can recall her manner clearly enough - perhaps she was a little more subdued than usual."

"But you cannot be sure," Sherlock dismissed. He waited for the confirming shrug before standing, pushing the straight-backed chair noisily back from the table. "Thank you for your time, Mr Miracle, you have been… most helpful."

Miracle stood with the rest of them, reaching out to shake John's hand. "Of course, Master Holmes. Constable," he nodded to Lestrade, hesitating awkwardly as Sherlock didn't return his handshake. "I hope that you find the ladies safe."

"So we were right," Sherlock said as soon as they were back on the street, the door of the studio swinging shut behind them. "Lady Brackenstall and Lady Carfax knew each other well. Their disappearances are tightly linked."

John sighed. "Maybe Lady Brackenstall did kill her husband, and Lady Carfax helped. Or talked her into it. From the sounds of it, Lady Brackenstall placed a lot of worth on the opinion of her only friend."

The detective frowned as though he hadn't considered this possibility. "Why would she help her?" he asked.

"They were friends," Lestrade joined in eagerly. "And we don't know how Lord Carfax died either, do we? If she had a 'dark secret' -"

"His heart gave out. He was considerably older than her, his physician declared that he died of natural causes," Sherlock spouted, looking incredulously at the two of them. "And if Lady Carfax's _dark secret_ has been dead for four years, then how did she get those bruises on her wrist when we questioned her?"

John and the Constable were on a roll now, like a goods cart down a hill. He grinned. "They happened while she was killing Lord Brackenstall," he theorised. "Maybe they only knocked him out because he grabbed her."

Sherlock looked thoroughly annoyed now. "Then why is the Queen after her?" He had raised his voice slightly, as though keeping himself from shouting.

John felt his face fall a little. "They could be unrelated," he tried. Sherlock snorted. "What, you don't believe in coincidence?"

"I _believe_ in it, but it's a fool's excuse," the detective said scathingly. "Coincidence can only be the answer when you have eliminated every other possibility, and you two haven't done that. It's far more likely that Lady Carfax's _dark secret_ is why the Queen wants her found, and what's got her into trouble. If she told Lady Brackenstall even a hint of her secret – well, the _Queen's_ involved, it must be a secret worth lives." Sherlock paused for breath - his first since beginning the lightning-fast speech - and seemed to calm himself down somewhat. "We don't have enough information to build a comprehensive theory," he continued, his voice calmer. "Theorising without that information is dangerous - you start seeing only the evidence that fits your theory, rather than the theory that fits _all_ the evidence."

Lestrade looked at John, as though checking whether he had understood any of the detective's speech. John grinned. "All right," he placated. "So we need more evidence."

Sherlock made a noise of confirmation. "We need the maid," he said, burying his hands in his coat pockets. "The one Lady Carfax dismissed before she went missing. And all of my brother's information on her, and anything he can find on both husbands. You'll ask him for it when you see him, won't you, Lestrade?"

The Constable spluttered slightly. "What makes you think I'll see him again?" he asked.

John raised an eyebrow at his tone, which was a little more defensive than Sherlock's question demanded. The detective gave him a stern look. "He's my brother, I know the way he works. He stays as far away from me as possible, so now that I've given him an alternate point of contact for this case, it'll be you that he contacts." Sherlock peeled his mouth into a falsely bright smile, as if to say _congratulations_. "I'd say 'give him my regards', but I don't _have_ any regard for him."

Lestrade frowned. "He didn't seem that bad," he muttered.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes; the Constable's cheeks darkened and he refused to meet them. "Didn't he?" he said loftily. "How nauseating. Come on, John."

To his credit, Lestrade seemed to recover from his embarrassment, merely rolling his eyes at the detective and flapping a dismissive hand. "Fine," he said wearily. "I'll be in touch when I've spoken to your brother again, and I know when I might go to Sussex to see the inn."

John smiled at the Constable, because Sherlock was already gone.

"You're quite rude to Lestrade," he commented once he had caught up to his friend at the lip of the bridge.

Sherlock snorted again, barely looking at John. "He's an idiot," he retorted. "He fancies Mycroft, I can't think of anything _more_ idiotic. You shouldn't encourage him with all your unfounded theories."

John tried not to look as though this hurt. "I was only trying to help," he said in as patient a tone as he could manage. "Last time I suggested things like that to you it seemed to help. Why'd you keep asking me to come with you if I annoy you?"

"You don't _annoy_ me," Sherlock backtracked, in a tone of voice that suggested the exact opposite, slowing his steps so that John didn't have to trot to keep up and turning to look at him. "You just don't know enough about this kind of work to make the claims that you were making with Lestrade."

He sounded so confident, so contemptuous, that a flash of annoyance shot through John's spine. "So why do you keep asking me along?" he asked hotly.

Sherlock hesitated, his grey-green eyes flickering along the surface of the Thames. "I don't _force_ you to come. You can stop if you don't like it."

"That's _not_ what I meant," John snapped. Sherlock looked away from him again, clamping his lips tightly together. One long-fingered hand crept to his breast pocket as though he wasn't quite aware of the motion, toying with what John knew was the _As You Like It_ scripts he'd mentioned earlier. It was still at least an hour before midday, and yet John suddenly didn't feel like playing Rosalind's games with the detective. He sighed. "Well, have fun with Molly," he said abruptly as they reached the street where he would have to turn off to get to his flat.

Sherlock's lips tightened yet further, and his hand dropped back to his side. "Yes," he said shortly. "He certainly seems enthusiastic."

John almost stopped walking, a further flash of irritation gripping his muscles at the scornful note in the other man's voice. "Don't be thick," he told the detective. "He adores you. His admiration of your work is what got him into theatre in the first place. His getting to rehearse with you is a dream come true."

Sherlock actually snorted. "Well, that's ridiculous. I'm hardly someone people should aim to emulate."

"Jesu, _I_ know that," John cried. "But he doesn't know you well enough to know that. I just… I like him, and I don't want you to hurt him, because if you're as rude to him as you are to Lestrade it will absolutely crush him."

The detective's lip curled upwards into a tiny condescending sneer. " _You like him_ ," he repeated scornfully. "That's what this is really about, isn't it? You resent that he likes me more than you, because you're so used to being his hero, his mentor, his experienced _best friend_ , and now you're worried that he'll find someone else whose every word he can hang onto instead."

This struck two nerves in John, really, as it was simultaneously so right and so completely wrong. "I wouldn't expect you to understand," he said cruelly. "We're _friends_ \- and you don't have any of those, do you?"

Sherlock finally seemed to acknowledge that John had stopped walking, slowing to a halt and turning to face him instead of simply throwing insults over his shoulder. "Apparently not," he said quietly. "I'll see you later, John."

It wasn't until he had closed his front door behind him that his anger cooled and he realised what he'd said.

* * *

Sherlock had left the Globe by the time John arrived; he suspected this was intentional and had left his flat a few minutes later than usual to allow it, but it didn't stop his face from falling slightly.

Ben patted him lightly on the arm. "Sherlock told me that you had an argument," he said gently. "You seemed like you were getting on so well."

_Apparently not_ , John repeated to himself. He wasn't sure what he thought of the fact that the detective had confided that information in Ben. At least he didn't seem to have hurt him. "It was my fault," he admitted. "I mean, the argument itself was both of us, but my last comment was unnecessary. He was only doing that thing he does, you know, where he just knows things about you."

The boy grinned cheekily. "What did he know?" he asked.

John snorted. "Everything," he replied cryptically. "Well, almost everything." Ben chuckled good-naturedly and didn't press the point. "Anyone seen Tobias?" he asked when the laugh had died down.

Ben shook his head. "Will went to get him from his house earlier," he explained. "So he had time to talk to him before they got here."

"Ah," John said softly. "Good luck to him, then. Shall we run Act III, scene ii before we costume? That was our clumsiest yesterday."

He kept an eye on the stagehand as the time crept on: the poor man, always flustered from running around after their largely amateur cast, seemed not to be able to decide whether to stand or sit, compulsively pulling his pocket-watch out and checking it. By the time William Shakespeare burst through the stage door, ruffled and panting, John was beginning to share in his anxiety as the noise from the audience grew. "Is he here?" he playwright asked desperately.

The assembled players looked at each other. "We thought you were getting him," John spoke for them, feeling his stomach drop unpleasantly.

"He's not at his house," Shakespeare panted, looking as though his worst nightmares were coming to light. "His mother hasn't seen him all day; she assumed he was with us."

John cursed under his breath. "We haven't seen him," he said. There was a pause as everyone processed this information. "We can't go on without a Titania," John said, undoubtedly voicing what everyone else was thinking.

"It's ten minutes to curtain, we can't cancel," Ben piped up, his dark eyes wide.

Everyone stared at Will and the stagehand, leaving a few precious minutes' silence. The playwright sighed. "So we'll have to find someone else," he said.

"Where are you going to find someone in ten minutes who knows Titania's part?" John pointed out.

Shakespeare actually smiled. "Don't worry," he said enigmatically. "I have someone in mind."

Oddly, John didn't find this particularly reassuring. He didn't dare look at the co-star that had sprinted onto the stage at the last minute until he was ready to say his first line; he didn't trust Will not to have found someone on the street or even in the audience who claimed to know all the lines but would in fact rely heavily on the stage-hand's prompts. _I suppose they can't be any worse than Tobias._

Finally, he drew breath for the opening speech and looked at the boy sitting across from him in a lilac toga, and was so shocked his breath fled again and he had to redraw it.

It was _Sherlock_. And he looked furious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned in the last chapter, Christopher Miracle is from Gatiss' _The Vesuvius Club_. He was good fun to write, but I eventually decided not to take any further plotlines from _The Vesuvius Club_ , as I don't think I'd be able to do it without involving Lucifer Box, and the Box/Holmes rivalry that exists in my head is something I'd like to dedicate an entire fic to one day, not just a footnote in this one.
> 
> I think I should also mention that this next chapter is the one that I had in mind right from the moment I decided to write a Shakespeare!AU. This could make it quicker, as I've been thinking about it for ages, or slower, because there's a lot of stuff I want to put in it and I want to get it just right. Either way, it should be a good one :-P


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, welcome to my 9,000 word tribute to _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. This was the scene I first imagined writing, the one that made me want to write a Shakespeare!AU in the first place. As such, I may have got a little carried away with it. Sorry-not-sorry.
> 
> All text was from the 2012 Norton edition, though I have added my own punctuation and emphasis in places. You shouldn't have to, but I suggest reading a synopsis of the plot before reading this chapter if you're not familiar with it already: a good one can be found [here](http://www.playshakespeare.com/midsummer-nights-dream/synopsis). If you want to read the whole play, which I am always going to recommend (and not just because this chapter may read better if you do), you can find an online copy [here](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/full.html). I've found this to be pretty close to the Norton edition. Thanks, as always, to **Mr_CSI, SplendidDust** , and **Silmanumenel** for their editorial contributions to this chapter.
> 
> And lastly, I'm in the process of changing the name of this fic to _What You Will_. I'm trying to do this gradually so that no-one loses the fic, hence the dual title this time around.

It took a moment for John to regain the breath that he'd carefully stacked up in order to project his voice properly, and it still shook on his first line.

" _Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour  
Draws on apace..."_

He couldn't tell whether the actor was looking at him as though he were imagining lighting his breeches on fire on purpose, as a part of the scene – Tobias hadn't quite grasped it, but John had always thought Hippolyta was a far more reluctant bride than he had portrayed – or because he really wanted John to wither and die in front of his eyes. Hippolyta had been Queen of the Amazons before Theseus stole her away to be wed, and John had never thought that she would simply submit to the Greek woman's way of life. On the other hand, Sherlock himself had every right to be angry at John.

Whatever the reason, Sherlock was certainly portraying that sense of anger at his current circumstances; he spat his only line in the scene with a careful mix of seething anger and schooled pleasantry. John coaxed his face out of a grin. If Sherlock was going to play that game, John would play it too.

" _Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,  
And won thy love doing thee injuries.  
But I will wed thee in another key -  
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling."_

John pretended to ignore the pronounced shift in Sherlock's posture as he sighed in impatience, but the part of his stomach that had always rebelled at Tobias' flat affect was rejoicing at Sherlock's involvement in the scene, his sheer _energy_ \- already it hummed between them as the lovers entered and John pretended to be oblivious to his bride's disapproval. He'd anticipated a certain thrill to acting beside the detective on an actual stage, and it was already living up to his expectations, even with the tiny twinge of guilt that he felt every time he saw the irate fire in his friend's eyes. Sherlock frowned his way through Hermia's proclamations, sulkily allowing John to toy with his fingers as he did so.

"How on God's earth did you end up there?" John asked him once the scene was over and Sherlock had followed him offstage.

The detective shrugged carelessly. "Shakespeare spotted me in the audience. He came out and told me that your friend Anderson hadn't shown and that he had a suspicion I knew all the lines."

John grinned. "Do you?" he asked, though he had no doubt.

Sherlock looked as though he was trying very hard not to smile back through his scowl. "Of course," he said grudgingly. "Well, mostly. It's been a while since I learned them, but I'm sure they're still there."

He snorted. Sherlock treated him to the ghost of a smile. "Sherlock, I'm sorry for what I said," John blurted desperately as the smile faded. "I never meant - I've considered you to be my friend since the day we met. I didn't mean to belittle that just because you happened to touch a nerve with what you said about Molly."

There was a long pause, until holding his breath in anticipation of a reply became uncomfortable. Then Sherlock nodded shortly and stalked off on his heel, leaving John to wonder whether that meant the detective had forgiven him or merely accepted his apology. If he tried to follow, would Sherlock let him?

"What did he say about me?" Ben asked from behind him, holding out John's tunic for his costume change.

John sighed, passing a hand in front of his face. "He was suggesting that I favour you for your looks, rather than your talent. That I have… unsavoury designs on you." He grimaced at the words – they weren't exactly what Sherlock had said, but the implication had been clear, and John had never been good at lying under pressure.

The boy raised a suggestive eyebrow, not looking at all rattled by the implication. "And that touched a nerve?" he asked, grinning cheekily.

"Not because I _do_ ," John clarified quickly, startled by his flippancy. It didn't quite strike John as flirting, but it was close enough to make him a little uneasy. "I was insulted that he thought I'd take advantage of you like that."

Ben shrugged easily, helping John into his fairy pantaloons. "I know you're an honourable man," he said simply; John wondered if he was imagining the tiny wistful bent to the words. He made as if to help John tie the points on his trousers, then seemed to think better of it and dropped his hands. "I'll go and see if Sherlock needs help," he said, his face splitting into a grin at the thought. "Isn't this exciting? I mean - I hope Tobias is okay, and all, but doing _Dream_ with Sherlock will be something else entirely! Even just rehearsing with him - it's like there's something intense connecting you together, you know, like there isn't enough air in the room?" John smiled at his enthusiasm and waved him away, fastening his own trousers and feeling his cheeks heat slightly as the boy's eyes followed his hands to his groin before he turned away.

He'd considered that the young actor might want him before, in the few moments when he'd allowed himself to contemplate his own attraction before locking it in the back of his mind. He couldn't let himself think that it would make a difference; Ben was fourteen, he couldn't know what he wanted. Even with the boy's verbal consent, it _was_ taking advantage, and John refused to be the kind of man who did that.

He sighed and shrugged on the rest of his costume, watching the young Puck slink onstage and startle the tiny fairy that was his partner for the first part of the scene. He watched them for as long as he could, before he had to take his own place behind the stage door for Oberon's first entrance. He glanced over at Sherlock behind the door on the other side of the stage, but the detective wasn't looking at him. Tobias' elaborate costume evidently hadn't fit Sherlock's taller, broader stature, and the detective was draped in a periwinkle-blue dress made from some kind of gauze that floated around his body. John sucked in a deep breath through his nose, feeling a flare of adrenaline he hadn't had in quite a while.

_"Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania_ ," he greeted after they had swept majestically onto the stage by separate doors and Ben and his fairy partner had flocked to their respective masters.

Sherlock turned his nose skywards dismissively, shooing the fairy behind him with a protective arm. In the better light of the stage, the dress that Archie the costume designer had found for him clung to his body in rather Grecian ways, somehow both accentuating and concealing the masculinity of his physique. While it wasn't quite as spectacular and ethereal as Tobias' had been, it was breathtaking on the detective. " _What, jealous Oberon?_ " Sherlock scoffed. _"Fairies, skip hence:  
I have forsworn his bed and company._"

He barely glanced at John, instead waving a hand at his fairy entourage and making to leave. _"Tarry, rash wanton,_ " John called after him, slightly worried by Sherlock's refusal to meet his eyes. _"Am not I thy lord?_ "

" _Then I must be thy lady,"_ Sherlock replied. _"But I know  
When thou hast stol'n away from fairy land,  
_ _And in the shape of Corin sat all day,  
_ _Playing on pipes of corn and versing love  
_ _To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,  
_ _Come from the farthest steppe of India?  
_ _But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,  
_ _Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love  
_ _To Theseus must be wedded, and you come  
_ _To give their bed joy and prosperity."_

Still, the detective refused to let his eyes rest on John for more than the tiniest of looks before they darted off into the audience. The coldness radiated out from him until John felt he might freeze where he stood, and the knowledge that it wasn't entirely the act only made him more determined to break the ice. He stepped closer.

" _How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,  
_ _Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,  
_ _Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?  
_ _Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night  
_ _From Perigouna, whom he ravished?  
_ _And make him with fair Aegle break his faith,  
_ _With Ariadne and Antiopa?"_

Sherlock tossed his head like an impatient horse, dropping one hand to stroke the hair of his youngest fairy. Oddly, he glanced at Ben before turning back to the audience. _"These are the forgeries of jealousy_ ," he insisted in outrage, refusing John's offer of stepping closer, turning his body away instead.  
 _"And never, since the middle summer's spring,  
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,  
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,  
_ _Or in the beached margin of the sea,  
_ _To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,  
_ _But with thy brawls, thou hast disturb'd our sport."_

He moved away as he launched into Shakespeare's lurid description of the desolate fairyland, stepping delicately across the stage and shepherding the fairies ahead of him. John folded his arms and settled in for the speech, casting his eyes over his own entourage. Ben glanced at him, one eyebrow raised, his eyes questioning. John raised both of his own, silently agreeing - with expressions too subtle to be seen by the audience - to whatever the boy was asking John's permission for.

Ben took one hesitant step towards Sherlock as though to comfort him, and without thinking, John shot an arm out to hold him back, yanking the young actor possessively back to his side. The tiniest of surprised noises escaped his mouth, drawing attention to them, so John clamped his other hand on the boy's shoulder, holding him in place, aware that every ounce of his body language was now challenging Sherlock and running with it. His own excitement amplified his heartbeat in his ears.

The two of them stood like that, listening to the flowing verse in the detective's smooth baritone rumble. He hadn't even considered what Shakespeare's language would sound like in Sherlock's mouth, too caught up in the emotion of his acting, but he was quickly realising his mistake: the two worked wonderfully together, with the detective fluctuating easily between anger and misery in his tirade until he turned back to John and Ben for his final accusation: _"And this same progeny of evils comes  
From _our _debate, from our dissension;_

_We are their parents and original_." He strode back to them as he spoke, lifting a hand to gesture at John in fury until he stood so close that the final booming line ruffled his hair.

John bodily moved Ben aside, not letting go of him, in order to face Sherlock properly. " _Do you amend it then, it lies in you,"_ he cried, pointing an accusing finger and stepping yet closer until their chests almost touched. It was uncanny, being so much shorter than his female counterpart.  
 _"Why should Titania cross her Oberon?  
I do but beg a little changeling boy  
To be my henchman." _

Without warning, Ben yanked himself out of John's grip with a huff, stalking away from him. John tried very hard not to look at him, to keep his gaze locked with Sherlock's as though holding a dagger at bay.

_"Set your heart at rest_ ," Sherlock said finally, straightening up from where John had not noticed him leaning closer.  
 _"The fairy land buys not the child of me."_

Released from Sherlock's stare, John allowed himself to turn to where Ben was standing with the rest of his entourage, arms folded, looking sulky. Sherlock's fairies, too, had retreated to the other side of the stage as though fearful of the argument between their king and queen. Titania's monologue about the boy that was the centre of their argument served as a tiny reprieve from the fury of their argument, which John took advantage of, stepping back a little to watch Sherlock's gestures and listen to the rolling cadence of his voice. Infuriatingly, the detective was actually directing his speech at Ben rather than John, moving from pinning him with the entire focus of his attention to pretending he didn't exist in the space of a few lines. Helpless anger bubbled in John's stomach, paired with a distant sort of admiration that he could feel like this when he knew everything was just pretend.

_"How long within this wood intend you stay?"_ John asked when Sherlock's voice had faded.

The detective glanced at him contemptuously. _"Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day,"_ he said, like this _didn't_ confirm all of Oberon's suspicions of her affairs.  
 _"If you will patiently dance in our round  
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;  
_ _If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts_."

As in a last desperate bid for his attention, John stepped in and grabbed a fistful of the front of Sherlock's dress. _"Give me that boy, and I will go with thee,"_ he proposed, forcing the detective to turn and face him once more, reluctantly meeting his eyes.

Sherlock stood proudly, as though John wasn't completely manhandling him, glaring defiantly down at him. _"Not for thy fairy kingdom,"_ he said archly.

John lunged forwards and kissed him.

It was an angry, bruising kiss, more focussed on regaining control and forcing Sherlock to pay attention to him than on the act itself. Even so, as soon as John's brain caught up to his pounding heart and realised what he'd done it was all he could do not to panic. The detective clearly hadn't expected such a move either, and his body had stiffened in shock under John's hands, one of which had planted itself at the nape of his neck to prevent escape.

Having started it, suddenly breaking the kiss himself would break character, so John had no choice but to carry on, biting roughly at Sherlock's lips in an exaggerated, visually angry kiss; finally, the detective relaxed into him, one long-fingered hand burying itself in the voluminous fabric of John's sleeve and a tiny hint of tongue flicking at John's lips.

He was _kissing Sherlock_.

As soon as that thought wandered through John's head on its own - unencumbered by the idea of _the play_ and the nonverbal power struggle that John still wasn't entirely sure was simply their characters - Sherlock's fingers found better purchase against his chest and pushed him roughly away. Still deep into his character, the detective tugged his dress back into place with an affectation of the utmost fury - but as he glared at John, there was something in the depth of his eyes that only looked stunned and lost, like Sherlock himself didn't know how to pull himself back together. A twinge of guilt pulled at John's stomach.

_"Fairies, away!"_ Sherlock recovered, his voice ringing, irate.

_"We shall chide downright, if I longer stay."_

And he gathered his fairies from where they cowered at the edge of the stage, and swept away. John took a deep breath to attempt to compose himself before turning back to the audience. _"Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove  
Till I torment thee for this injury." _

He looked around for Ben, who was still standing surrounded by John's entourage to one side, arms folded sulkily. _"My gentle Puck, come hither,_ " he called, stepping close enough to stroke a finger down his bare arm. Ben seemed to hesitate, clearly looking at the door through which Titania had just left, before he skipped over to John's side. John placed his hand indulgently back on his shoulder, smiling slightly as the boy leaned into the touch. He held him carefully away for the poetic direction of his next monologue.

_"Thou rememberest  
Since once I sat upon a promontory,  
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back…"_

By the end of his speech, Ben had relaxed somewhat, suiting the gradual lengthening of Puck's responses to Oberon's poetry. John really had to admire his adaptability - for a fourteen year-old, he understood the way the scene worked and how to work the particular angle that he, John and Sherlock seemed to have chosen for the afternoon's performance, different as it was from the one they had been doing for the last few weeks.

Even the lovers had stepped up their game, not to be outdone by the fairies; John watched Helena and Demetrius rush past his tenuous hiding place behind a prop. He'd always liked the relationship between the two 'lesser' lovers: it was the less healthy side of obsessive love, the way not everyone fell in love like Lysander and Hermia, with someone who loved them in return, the way Helena followed her hopeless infatuation even into the danger of the forest.

_Your virtue is my privilege; for that  
_ _It is not night when I see your face,  
_ _Therefore I think I am not in the night;  
_ _Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,  
_ _For you in my respect are all the world:  
_ _Then how can it be said I am alone,  
_ _When all the world is here to look on me?_

He'd always thought it interesting that Oberon sympathised with Helena's plight enough to attempt to help. He sighed wistfully, feigning a jump when Ben approached him once more, clutching a spray of purple flowers, covering his character's moment of introspection with a gush of flowery verse.

This was a scene they had performed like this many times before, and yet there was an extra sparkle in the young fairy's eyes, an extra hesitance in his voice as he agreed to the plot to bring Helena and Demetrius together, an extra horror in his imaginings of Titania enchanted to fall in love with some woodland creature. John grinned broadly at the audience before making his exit: they sat positively spellbound, like they hadn't been for any other performance of this _Dream_. Although, he reasoned to himself as he left the stage, this was hardly the same production as the one of the previous afternoon.

He grinned at Sherlock, too, as the detective passed him at the stage door, and Sherlock smiled grudgingly in return. It was the barest of expressions, just a tiny twisting of his mouth, but John counted it as progress nonetheless.

They left the stage door ajar so that John was still visible through it, peering through as Sherlock and his fairy train sang their sleep-song, with the other fairies leading the tune that Sherlock had only heard the few times he'd been in the audience. He winked at a few of them as they filed out through the other door, silently congratulating them - not that they hadn't been leading the song with Tobias anyway, but at least the younger boy had actually _known_ the tune.

He stepped out as Sherlock completed his theatrical yawn and settled to sleep on the stage. There was a tree-stump prop balanced beside him, which John perched himself on to stare at his character's one-time lover.

Sherlock looked perfectly ethereal like this, dark eyelashes spread over the cliffs of his cheekbones, curls spread in a halo around his face. His lips were parted slightly as he breathed, the cupid's-bowed shape relaxed.

John had just kissed those lips. The pressure of his own hand darkened them in comparison to their normal pale pink.

Impulsively, he dropped to one knee in front of the detective-turned-fairy queen and stroked the backs of his fingers down one smooth cheek. Sherlock stiffened, clearly not expecting the move, and then covered the move with a sleepy sort of stirring motion. John drew a deep breath and picked up the violet flowers from the stump, making crushing motions with one of them.

" _What thou seest when thou dost wake,  
_ _Do it for thy true-love take,  
_ _Love and languish for his sake:  
_ _Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,  
_ _Pard, or boar with bristled hair,  
_ _In thy eye that shall appear  
_ _When thou wakest, it is thy dear,"_ John recited, stroking the detective's eyelids gently and making Sherlock stir again. He bent right down to the other man's ear for the final line, projecting it as softly and menacingly as he could so that the backs of the stands could still hear it.

" _Wake when some vile thing is near."_

The lovers made their customary clamour at the opposite stage door, and John slunk back from the stage and out his own door for the painting of their own eyelids. He had to admit that the young actors had always grasped the horror that he found in the mistaken love-spells, though he usually found their Demetrius portrayed it clearer than their Lysander: tonight, though, he heard the helpless cry of _And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake_ in a slightly more desperate, eerie tone and smiled to himself.

It was quite remarkable how the addition of Sherlock had stepped up _everyone's_ energy, even those whose characters were meant to be unaware that they ever shared a stage with him. He looked over at Will backstage, shaking out the sleeves of his mechanical costume; the playwright grinned and gave him an encouraging gesture.

John grinned back: he knew Will enjoyed the metaphor of playing Quince himself, the director of the mechanicals' crude _Pyramus and Thisbe_ , and he would enjoy it even more with a cast full of the sheer _difference_ between Tobias and Sherlock. John wished he could watch Sherlock fall in love with their Bottom, but there was nowhere on this stage he could watch from without being seen by the audience, and there were lines later in the play that lost their effect if Oberon saw the initial interaction, so he bit his lip and settled for listening to the scene instead, waiting with an approximation of patience for his next cue. It was immensely satisfying to hear Titania's lines performed by someone who understood their tragic comedy; John smiled to himself as he stepped onstage in the fairies' stead.

_"I wonder if Titania be awaked;  
Then, what it was that next came in her eye,  
Which she must dote on in extremity." _ He straightened as Ben entered, sweeping his arms wide in a welcome that the boy didn't acknowledge, instead stepping closer reluctantly, as though he would rather run away.  
 _"Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit!  
What night-rule now about this haunted grove?"_

The young actor took an age to meet his eyes, and in a tone of utmost horror delivered one of John's favourite lines in the play: " _My mistress with a monster is in love."_

Eagerly, John grabbed the boy by the shoulders and bodily moved him so that he stood in front of where John placed himself, promptly sitting attentively on the tree stump to listen to Puck's monologue, recounting how he had transfigured Bottom's head into a donkey's and then directed him towards Titania. The two of them had discussed at length whether this manipulation was intentional on Puck's part, but today Ben seemed to have decided that it definitely was, his every line filled with self-revulsion at his actions. John let his companion's horror spur him on to greater delight, the two of them lifting each other higher until John felt almost mad with it.

"... _when in that moment, so it came to pass,  
Titania waked, and straightway loved an ass."_

John crowed with delight. " _This falls out better than I could devise,"_ he cried, jumping up once more and pulling Ben into a tight embrace, waiting until the boy hesitantly returned it before forcibly pulling him away and setting him back on his feet.

" _But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes  
With the love-juice, as I bid thee do?"_

Ben actually brushed his arms off, as though shrugging away the memory of John's touch. " _I took him sleeping,"_ he answered sulkily. " _That is finish'd too.  
And the Athenian woman by his side:  
That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed."_

He made another joyous step towards his companion as though to embrace him again; Ben stepped backwards to avoid the gesture at the same moment as Hermia and Demetrius entered. John quickly grabbed the boy and placed a finger to his lips. _"Stand close,"_ he instructed him, as though he could move with John's hands on him. _"This is the same Athenian."_

The boy's arms dropped as if in shock. _"This is the woman,_ " he agreed, sounding horror-struck once more, " _but not this the man._ "

John stared in surprise. _"What hast thou done?_ " he cried angrily once the lovers had had their quarrel and gone their separate ways - Hermia offstage, Demetrius laying himself down to sleep before them. " _Thou hast mistaken quite  
And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:  
Of thy misprision must perforce ensue  
Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true._"

For the first time in the scene, Ben grinned cheekily, scampering out of John's arms and onto the tree stump as though standing proudly on a second stage. " _Then fate o'er-rules,_ " he pronounced, " _that, one man holding troth,  
A million fail, confounding oath on oath._"

John rounded on him angrily. _"About the wood go swifter than the wind,"_ he commanded in as thunderous a voice as he could manage,  
 _"And Helena of Athens look thou find:  
All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer,  
With sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear:  
_ _By some illusion see thou bring her here:  
_ _I'll charm his eyes against she do appear."_

" _I go, I go,"_ Ben placated, jumping off the tree stump as John rounded on him and putting the prop between them as if to shield himself. " _Look how I go,  
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow._"

John painted their young Demetrius' eyes with his flowers as Ben scampered off and re-entered, alone and looking no less gleeful at the misfortune he'd brought on the lovers. " _Captain of our fairy band,  
Helena is here at hand," _he explained.  
 _"And the youth, mistook by me,  
Pleading for a lover's fee.  
Shall we their fond pageant see?  
_ _Lord, what fools these mortals be!"_

_"Stand aside,_ " John ordered him, swiping an irritated hand in his direction from where he'd sat back down upon the stump _. "The noise they make  
Will cause Demetrius to awake._"

Ben climbed onto the stump behind him, making as if to rub his shoulders. _"Then will two at once woo one  
That must needs be sport alone:  
And those things do best please me  
That befall preposterously,_" he murmured sultrily into John's ear. John moved his head away from the boy's lips - partly because his voice was uncomfortably loud at such close proximity - and took a deep breath, as though resigning himself to his servant's delight.

They froze as Helena stalked onstage, chased by Lysander, still babbling his enchanted vows of devotion. John raised an eyebrow at Ben as she rounded on him.

_"These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er?  
Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:  
_ _Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,  
_ _Will even weigh, and both as light as tales."_

The young fairy seemed to shrink under the force of John's _I told you so_ body language as the tall Lysander stepped forwards and trapped his would-be lover in the circle of his arms. _"I had no judgment when to her I swore,"_ he promised ardently.

She shrugged him off. _"Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er._ "

" _Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you -"_

In her violent back-stepping away from Lysander's advance, Helena almost stepped on the sleeping Demetrius, who had flinched slightly when her foot had almost connected with his nose, but on this cue had jumped to his knees, clinging to the trailing fabric of Helena's skirts with a deranged cry of, _"Oh Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!"_

Sill holding Ben's gaze, John slowly lowered his head into the palm of one hand in despair as the lovers' argument began. The fairy, on the other hand, ignored him and settled cross-legged on the stump to watch them as though he could think of no better sport.

John certainly hadn't seen better from these players, at any rate - as Demetrius and Lysander began their back-and-forth, ignoring Helena's cries of protest from between them, they actually took hold of the young actor and began bodily pulling their Helena towards each of them in turn, both stepping closer to her when Hermia entered to protest Lysander's abandonment of her. John and Ben watched them somewhat proudly, gradually inflating their own body language in their caricature of Oberon's fury and Puck's guilty enjoyment until all four lovers chased each other from the stage.

_"This is_ thy _negligence,"_ John thundered, rising from the stump the moment they had left. Ben fell off the prop and scrambled humbly to his knees. _"Still thou mistakest:  
Or else committ'st thy knaveries willfully." _

Ben let out a helpless whimper. " _Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook,"_ he begged, shrinking away as John advanced on him.  
" _Did you not tell me I should know the man  
By the Athenian garment he had on?  
And so far blameless proves my enterprise,  
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes." _He was such a picture of contrition that John relented a little, smiling and holding out a hand to help the youth to his feet. Ben took it eagerly, hoisting himself to his feet and breaking into a cheeky grin.

_"And so far I am glad it so did sort,"_ he continued insouciantly, bumping his hip against John's,  
 _"As this, their jangling, I esteem a sport."_

John gave a resigned sigh, placing a paternal hand on Ben's shoulder as he instructed the boy to mimic Lysander and Demetrius in order to make them both fall asleep to undo Lysander's spell of love; in a break from John's usual blocking, he lingered at the stage door to watch Ben playfully mimicking Lysander, deepening his voice in a rough imitation of Demetrius' to cry, " _Here, villain, drawn and ready!"_

He almost walked into Sherlock as he finally left the stage, standing close to the door and fidgeting slightly. "Sherlock," he hissed as he recovered his balance without falling back out of the door.

"Careful," the detective murmured unapologetically, reaching out a hand to help steady him. "John, I just wanted to... thank you, for what you said before," he said, as though the words almost hurt on their way out.

John started in surprise. "That's… fine," he replied, patting Sherlock's hand where it still lay on his upper arm. "I meant it all." The detective smiled weakly. Someone coughed close by: John looked around to see the older man playing Bottom standing at the other stage door, his donkey's head clamped under one arm. "You'd better go set, then," John pointed out, indicating the man.

He followed them onstage, watching from far back as Sherlock fawned over the ass-headed mechanical, climbing on him and stroking his mask and generally making a fool of himself. He tried to smile at first, but it was just as strange and unsettling seeing the detective behaving like this as he could imagine it would be to watch the actual queen of the fairies doing so, and the smile soon faded into a disconsolate frown. By the time Ben entered, panting slightly, he had fallen back onto the tree-stump, staring thoughtfully at his queen. He greeted him in the same absent tone.

_"Welcome, good Robin. See'st thou this sweet sight?  
Her dotage now I do begin to pity:  
For, meeting her of late behind the wood,  
_ _Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,  
_ _I did upbraid her and fall out with her;  
_ _For she his hairy temples had rounded  
_ _With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers."_ Ben snorted as though amused at the picture, but glanced over at his mistress, now asleep draped all over an ageing man with a donkey's head, and sobered quickly. John smiled grimly.

_"And that same dew, which sometime on the buds  
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,  
Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes  
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail." _He sighed at the picture, crossing the stage with Ben following until he was knelt over the sleeping detective.  
 _"When I had at my pleasure taunted her  
And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,  
I then did ask of her her changeling child,  
Which straight she _gave _me, and her fairy sent  
To bear him to my bower in fairy land." _John placed a possessive arm over Ben's shoulders once more, burrowing the boy into his chest. There was a fine edge, he'd always thought, between Oberon's delight at finally having this child and his disappointment that Titania had simply given him up. He gave the rest of his speech while gently stroking Sherlock's eyelids, removing his love-spell and perhaps lingering a little longer than necessary to continue touching him. _"Now, my Titania,"_ he murmured, pressing the tiniest of kisses on Sherlock's temple, _"wake you, my sweet queen._ "

Sherlock snapped upright so quickly he almost bumped heads with John. " _My Oberon!_ " he cried, scrambling to clutch at John's arms in a wild embrace. _"What visions I have seen!  
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass."_

" _There lies your love,_ " John replied, gesturing towards the still-sleeping Bottom with donkey's head affixed. Sherlock shuddered and hugged John tighter, as though to paint over the memories of Bottom with ones of Oberon.

" _How came these things to pass?_ " He cried in terror.  
 _"O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!"_

_"Silence, awhile,_ " John said hurriedly, patting his lover's shoulder to distract him. _"Robin, take off his head.  
Titania, music call: and strike more dead  
Than common sleep of all these five the sense."_

Sherlock smiled, accepting the hand up that John gave him and stepping carefully away from Bottom's body as Ben jumped towards it and eased the donkey mask off. _"Music, ho!"_ he called off the stage, answered by a simple strain of music. _"Music, such as charmeth sleep!"_

Ben straightened proudly from the unmasked Bottom. _"Now, when thou wakest, with thine own fool's eyes peep,"_ he proclaimed. John grinned at him.

_"Sound, music!"_ he called once more, then bowed to Sherlock, holding a hand in front of him in offering. _"Come, my queen, take hands with me  
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be." _The detective shyly took his hand as though preparing to dance, allowing John to pull him close.  
 _"Now thou and I are new in amity,  
And will to-morrow midnight solemnly  
Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,  
And bless it to all fair prosperity:  
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be  
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity."_

Sherlock leaned closer until his lips were on John's ear and whispered, "I don't know the dance you and Anderson were doing."

John smiled. "Just do a slow lavolta," he compromised, leading the opening galliard step at Sherlock's brisk nod. They danced for a few moments, John fighting the urge to say something else under its cover. "Sorry for kissing you before," he relented finally. "I should have at least given you some warning."

"Don't be ridiculous," the detective dismissed. "You surprised me, and it worked. I don't mind."

He wondered whether Sherlock meant he didn't mind being surprised in performance, or didn't mind John kissing him - or maybe the two were the same thing to him, and the kiss had been nothing but a tactical stage action.

It _had_ been a tactical stage action, John reminded himself, and it really shouldn't have meant more than that to him. "In fact," Sherlock added after a moment, "you should do it again."

John deliberated briefly. He'd always believed in a fine balance between the lead actor of the Admiral's Men, who took even the smallest opportunity to kiss his co-stars and came off as the kind of man that boys and women ought to avoid, and Burbage's opposing approach of avoiding kissing the boys entirely.

On the other hand, Sherlock seemed to be the exception to all of the other rules that John had made for himself in the theatre. He lifted the hand steadying Sherlock's back and stroked it through his hair instead, parting their bodies just enough to press their lips gently together.

It was a very different kiss, longer and sweeter, and John found his mind slipping as though the kiss was a raging river and he was desperately clinging to the bank of _the play_ so as not to get swept away by it. It seemed so _ordinary_ , like he ought to have been doing it all his life, and at the same time so _extra_ ordinary, like he _could_ do it all his life and still not grow used to it. Sherlock's lips were soft and smooth and warm as they moved against his, his nose pressing into John's cheekbone and blowing warm breaths against his face, and his curls brushing gently against John's forehead.

_"Fairy king!_ " Ben cried eventually, when they had stopped the dance in favour of the kiss, a tinge of irritation marring his voice. " _Attend, and mark:  
I do hear the morning lark."_

The two of them broke apart, John trying not to make his heavy breathing too obvious to the detective, who looked completely unruffled by the kiss. _"Then, my queen, in silence sad,  
Trip we after the night's shade:  
_ _We the globe can compass soon,  
_ _Swifter than the wandering moon."_

Sherlock smiled at him and looped their arms together for John to lead him offstage, throwing Titania's lines over his shoulder with an ease that Tobias had never achieved. _"Come, my Lord, and in our flight,  
Tell me how it came this night  
That I sleeping here was found  
With these mortals on the ground._"

As soon as they had left the stage, someone blew a horn from the other side, and Sherlock dropped his hand in favour of yanking the blue dress over his head. John stared for the briefest of moments before Archie the costumer nudged him and he remembered that he, too, had to change his costume within moments and bent to his pantaloons, trying to shake the image of the muscles surrounding Sherlock's shoulderblades flexing as he stripped the gauzy garment off.

The horns continued until John had haphazardly closed the last button on Theseus' trousers and the two of them sprinted back onto the stage, flanked by an amalgam of their fairy trains, changed into more military costumes. Sherlock's costume - again, hurriedly found in the dressing-rooms as Tobias' toga would not fit the taller detective - was still slightly too short, riding up his pale thighs as he ran onstage. John took a moment to pull his eyes away from them before delivering his first line as Theseus, delighting in his Hippolyta's joy at the hunt and their apparent reconciliation.

He took Sherlock's hand in his own as the entourage spotted the lovers asleep on the ground and woke them to explain why the two men who had been at each other's throats the last time Theseus had seen them were now sleeping quite peacefully beside each other. The detective turned Amazon princess stroked his shoulder encouragingly.

John had always laughed a little at how quickly Theseus overturned Hermia's father's determination that she should marry Demetrius and not Lysander. Egeus' insistence on having Lysander's head and Demetrius' heart was essentially the driving force of the play, and yet once it became apparent that Demetrius' heart had - perhaps unnaturally - returned to Helena, one sentence from Theseus denied the lord's cries for justice and ensured a happily ever after for the lovers.

It wasn't lost on him, however, that there was a different tone about Demetrius' declaration of love for Helena this afternoon than the young man had played it in the past: an element of the feverish, obsessive note that always made John delightfully uneasy in the fairy wood remained in it, and it wasn't lost on Helena either, the same uneasy note in her returning line: _I have found Demetrius like a jewel: mine own, and not mine own._ The boy remained stiff to the embrace and lavish kiss Demetrius bestowed upon him, as though still unwilling to believe that the man was truly in love with him. John had had endless arguments with both actors and audience members as to the nature of Demetrius' love for Helena once they had left the land of magic.

Once they had cleared the stage for the wedding scene, the young boy playing Helena stepped nervously in front of Sherlock, something steely in his eyes. "Um," he said, clearing his throat quietly. Sherlock glanced at John as if asking whether he ought to be worried. John grinned. "Mr Holmes, I just wanted to say - doing this with you has been a privilege. Everyone's performed better tonight, just because your energy is different. I'm not saying that I want Tobias in trouble, or whatever, but it's been great to have you here instead."

Sherlock smiled tightly at the boy. "Thank you," he said.

He grinned brightly. "Have fun with the wedding scene," the young actor beamed, scuttling off to the other lovers. John grinned at his friend.

"He's right, you know," he said. Sherlock raised an idle eyebrow. "The energy that you bring to the stage is so much more inspiring than Tobias', even the mechanicals have stepped it up a notch. I bet some of the lovers have really had their eyes opened to what the stage can be like."

Sherlock's eyebrows flickered amusedly. "I'm not certain Anderson brought _any_ energy to the stage," he derided. "But thank you, John. I've never acted with a cast this young before, but they're not bad. Very eager."

John hummed agreement. "And now, my dear," he said in a falsely bright tone, holding out his arm as if for a lady, "we must go to be married."

" _John_ ," Sherlock scolded, rolling his eyes, but he looped his arm through John's anyway. "I've never liked this scene. It seems completely pointless, except to close off the play for the mechanicals."

"Does there have to be more point to it than closure?" John asked, leading the detective to the stage door. "All good romantic comedies end with a wedding. I think this is better than just a dance. And _Pyramus and Thisbe_ serves as a sort of… relief of tension. We can laugh at it because what's just happened to us - to the lovers - could so easily have turned out that way, but it didn't."

Shakespeare tapped John gently on the shoulder as he came up behind them in the line for the stage door, winking cheerfully at his linked arms with Sherlock. The playwright looked absolutely elated at how the play had gone. John grinned back. "It's fun," John told the detective with an air of finality. "Enjoy it."

Sherlock sighed impatiently, but he was smiling.

" _Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of,"_ he opened as they swept onto the stage, leaning affectionately on John's arm.

" _More strange than true: I never may believe  
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.  
_ _Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,  
_ _Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend  
_ _More than cool reason ever comprehends..."_ They settled underneath the celebratory awning that had been erected between scenes as John finished his monologue, caressing the shoulder that was not draped with lilac fabric and inwardly delighting at how smooth and warm Sherlock's skin was, blocking visions of running his lips over the same tracks.

The detective bent and directed Hippolyta's doubts at the spellbound groundlings. _"But all the story of the night told over,  
And all their minds transfigured so together,  
More witnesseth than fancy's images  
And grows to something of great constancy;  
_ _But howsoever, strange and admirable."_

John winked at someone in the audience who caught his eye, patting Sherlock's arm as though he thought his words ridiculous, and then snapped quickly to greet the lovers with over-exaggerated enthusiasm.

He always enjoyed the wedding, treating it more like some kind of cast party than a part of the play itself. As they settled in their places on the stage to watch the mechanicals' performance, Sherlock bent his head to whisper affectionately in John's ear. "I'm not certain I know this scene as well as the rest," he admitted grudgingly.

"It's okay," John reassured him in the same whisper, pecking his cheek to cover their conversation. "All Hippolyta does is criticise the mechanicals, you can make it up if you get stuck." Sherlock gave a high-pitched laugh of false amusement, squeezing John's arm in thanks.

It was almost disappointing when the detective made it through the performance without having to improvise any lines: John had been quite looking forward to hearing what he came up with, despite the tiny worry that he would take 'criticising the mechanicals' to new levels of offensive, which seemed to be a talent of his.

Sherlock frowned once they cleared the stage, the revels complete, once more yanking his lilac toga over his head and accepting the gauzy blue dress when Archie held it out to him. "There's another song and dance now, isn't there?" he asked John, catching Shakespeare's eye. "Is there time for me to _learn_ the dance? This one didn't seem terribly complicated."

Ben popped up by his elbow. "I can slow my soliloquy a little," he offered. "It's not a complex dance."

Shakespeare nodded briskly. "Go on, then, good lad," he agreed, shooing the young actor towards the stage door. "All right, Sherlock - now _hand in hand, with fairy grace,  
Will we sing, and bless this place." _

John leaned against the stage door and watched his best friend teach his new co-star the affectionately-dubbed 'fairy dance of sexual prosperity'. It was an odd sight: they looked incredibly similar dancing together so sedately, occasionally grinning at each other as one of them took a wrong step. He smiled fondly at them. They had rather a lot in common, when he thought about it, right down to the fervent sparkle in their eyes. And both geniuses, of course, albeit in different fields. Perhaps he should be encouraging the two of them to spend more time together.

They both looked up at him at the same time, smiling broadly. John couldn't help but grin back, taking Will's place in the dance only to hear the final line of Ben's soliloquy and drop their hands again. Sherlock smiled at him, his angular face softening slightly. John fought the urge to lean in for a kiss. On stage, in character, he could pass off the compulsive press of lips on lips, but he couldn't do that when it was just he and Sherlock.

He led the detective on stage backwards, both their hands clasped together: to his surprise, Sherlock leaned forwards and pressed their lips briefly together before they reached centre stage.

" _Through the house give glimmering light.  
By the dead and drowsy fire  
Every elf and fairy sprite  
Hop as light as bird from brier,  
_ _And this ditty after me  
_ _Sing, and dance it trippingly."_

He pulled Sherlock into his arms and tipped their bodies from side to side in a mockery of a dance. The detective gave a high laugh. _"First, rehearse your song by rote,"_ he replied teasingly,  
 _"To each word a warbling note,  
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,  
Will we sing, and bless this place." _

John took Sherlock's hand and rested his own against the palm, beginning the first steps of the dance and the first lines of his song together, watching their respective fairies take partners and copy them in the dance. Sherlock danced with the same effortless grace as he did everything else, for all the world as if he had been performing the sequence for years. John found himself grinning, allowing the dance to speed up and become more cheerful, more of a celebration than he ever allowed himself with Tobias for fear of the other boy tripping. Sherlock laughed along with him, lifting the mood of the dance until they were spinning each other almost out of control, bumping bodily into Ben and his fairy partner and improvising a spin with all four of them, finishing with one of each of their hands on the younger actor's shoulders by the final line of the song.

_"Trip away, make no stay;  
Meet me all by break of day."_

In unison - to John's surprise - he and Sherlock bent to place a kiss on each of Ben's cheeks before leading each other off the stage, followed by their entourage so that Robin Goodfellow was once more alone. The boy waited a beat before opening his hands to the audience for the epilogue.

John glanced amusedly at Sherlock as they stopped backstage. "What was that?" he asked.

The detective didn't ask what he was talking about. "I knew you were about to, and I thought it would look better if we both did it. New in amity, and all that." John snorted. "That went surprisingly well," he remarked.

"Yes - of course, now people will go away and tell their friends about this incredible production of _Dream_ , and by the time the friends come to see us Tobias will be back."

Sherlock smiled in commiseration. "I meant the dance, rather than the whole play, but you're probably right."

"Oh," John replied. "I enjoyed the dance, actually. You were great."

The detective hummed unselfconsciously. "I actually quite enjoy dancing," he commented.

On stage, Ben finished delivering the epilogue; John cut off his retort in favour of peering through the gap in the stage door at the audience. There was a heartbeat of silence, in which the fact that the entire cast was holding their breath was painfully obvious backstage. Then the audience erupted.

It was as though a flash thunderstorm had overtaken the theatre: even the noblemen right at the back of the stands were on their feet, cheering and clapping and making enough noise that they probably disturbed the playing in the neighbouring theatres. John turned to beam at Sherlock but found himself swept into such a tight one-armed hug that he almost bumped heads with the detective, who had been pulled into it with him.

"You _two_ ," Shakespeare cried, kissing both of their cheeks and almost crying with excitement. "If I could _bottle_ your energy - you're _beautiful._ And _you_ ," he cried, grabbing Ben as he slipped through the stage door, releasing John and Sherlock in favour of kissing the boy's forehead reverently. "The three of you are a show on your own. Can I keep you?"

Sherlock snorted. "I'd say you have John and Molly for life," he said wryly. Will looked at him, his grin wavering, but Sherlock only smiled. "And I'll do this for as long as you need me," he confirmed. The playwright breathed out heavily and hugged him again; Sherlock accepted the hug, giving John an uncomfortable look.

"Right, curtain call," Will said suddenly, releasing Sherlock. "You three have to go on last. Send the lovers first, then the mechanicals, and then you three. Everyone stay on stage and we'll do one all together last."

The young lovers grinned at them as they passed, bowing to tumultuous applause. "Speaking of _as long as you need me_ ," Will said, watching them through the gap in the stage door, "I have another two acts of cue-scripts for _What You Will_ out the back for you."

"So," Sherlock remarked out of the corner of his mouth as the three of them performed their bow, almost deafened by the screams of the crowd, dodging handkerchiefs as people threw them onto the stage, "now we have two plays to work on together." He looked at John, one eyebrow raised in a facsimile of humour. "Careful you don't get sick of me."

John laughed in exhilaration and disbelief, hugging the taller man to him around his bare bicep because he couldn't comfortably reach his shoulders and grinning at a woman who looked as though she was moments away from climbing onto the stage to be nearer to them.

"If I ever get sick of _this_ ," he said firmly, "I'll know it's time to leave the stage for good."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _groundlings_ were the people who paid the bare minimum to attend the theatre and had to stand right in front of the stage. Back then, people only took these places if they couldn't afford anything better, but now it's the experience that most people want from the Globe. How times change.
> 
> A _lavolta_ is a dance commonly thought to be where the waltz came from, and I have **Silmanumenel** to thank for its inclusion here - until Elizabeth I performed it, it was thought to be rather inappropriate and lewd.
> 
> If there's anything else in this chapter you think ought to be glossed here, please let me know :-)
> 
> Also, I don't know if Benedict has ever played Demetrius before, but I kind of always read Demetrius as Benedict for some reason. I must have heard of him in that role somewhere, but he suits it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More theatre, because I think everyone involved wasn't quite ready for that to stop. The majority of this chapter is just me having fun. Totally worth it. The pub extract is from _Richard III_ , in case anyone didn't get that.
> 
> Also, I know I've already said several times that I take my playtext from the Norton edition, but I should mention that I also take my chronology from there. And that several lines in the Richard III extract are actually from the MIT edition, because I liked them better. If anyone is geeky enough to want specifics I can provide them, and a bit of love for my kin.
> 
> Lastly, this chapter has not yet been checked for historical inaccuracies because the woman who does that for me (a million thanks) has just started a new job and is ridiculously busy. If she picks up on anything later I'll change it.

"Pub," Will insisted the moment they stepped off stage, still flushed with success. "You too, Sherlock, you're not escaping this time."

The great detective rolled his eyes, more blue than green above the periwinkle dress, but the corners of his mouth twitched. "If I must," he sighed. "Am I allowed to change, or do I have to go in the dress?"

The playwright grinned. "You do look rather fetching in the dress," he commented. John had to agree, but managed to do so privately, sharing a smile out of the corner of his eye with Ben as the boy pulled a shirt over his painted chest. Sherlock almost smiled.

Ben kept up a steady stream of praise, reliving their performance as they changed out of costume. John tried not to stare as his friend unselfconsciously stripped the dress over his head, leaving him bare but for his underclothes. He swallowed hard instead. He wondered what the detective would say if John allowed his own infatuation to approach the degree of visibility that Ben's had reached. Would he still want John to follow him around when they were not practising for the stage?

They were greeted with another hearty cheer and round of applause as they entered the pub, a fair portion of their audience having apparently beaten them there. Sherlock smiled awkwardly as half the packed pub patted him on the back and praised his performance with lascivious looks until Will took pity on him and dragged him to the bar, bellowing at the crowd to leave his actors alone.

John accepted the pint that was handed to him by a beaming barman, who had evidently never seen his pub quite this full before, and propped himself up beside Sherlock against the bar. The detective grudgingly held his own mug of ale out for John to bump his against, and then drank with a look of mild distaste. John laughed. "You don't have to look so reluctant," he teased.

"This is not my idea of fun," Sherlock countered through gritted teeth. John grinned at him.

"Sorry for dragging you along, then," he said. "But look - these people just want to show you how much they enjoyed what we just did."

Sherlock sighed. "I know," he said, sparing John a small smile. "This is why I never joined a company."

John snorted. "What, so the writer could never force you to the pub to talk to your audience? You know, you could have said no."

"Can you tell me with absolute certainty that he wouldn't have beaten me if I had?" the detective asked darkly, casting a glance over the playwright, who was laughing with a group who had already bought him his second drink of the evening.

He laughed. "Perhaps not," he agreed. "This is better for him than for us, really. This production of _Dream_ was supposed to just be a kind of filler between _Hamlet_ and this new _What You Will_ for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, because _Hamlet_ took up so much of his time that he didn't have any new comedy to replace _As You Like It_. Getting such a reaction out of it will be incredible publicity for _What You Will_."

Sherlock hummed thoughtfully, taking another drink from his ale. John noticed that the grimace of distaste did not resurface. He buried his nose in his own drink rather than comment.

Ben, who had not quite developed the taste for ale that he pretended to, rested his own mug on the bar, crossing one arm over his chest to do so, which blocked his body from the young man who was getting a little too close as he praised the boy. John flashed the man a warning look and he backed off. Ben grinned gratefully at John.

"Do you always receive this much attention here?" Sherlock asked, shifting closer to John to allow an older man to reach the bar with an awkward smile.

John shrugged. "Not quite this much, but there are usually a few people who just saw us play. Will loves it. Wait until later - the crowd dies down a little, and then the doxies turn up." Sherlock made a face. "Not really interested in that kind of woman?" John asked, trying to sound casual instead of intensely interested in _that aspect_ of Sherlock's life.

The detective shrugged, not meeting John's eyes. "Not really interested in women," he said, mirroring John's pseudo-casual tone of voice. A shiver attempted to announce itself down his spine. Was Sherlock suggesting -

A shout from across the bar forced John to turn away from his friend; Will and his group of enthusiastic audience members had started up an interesting rendition of Oberon's song of sexual prosperity and it was the playwright who had called out to his actors. He grinned and opened his mouth to say something else, but was distracted by the man beside him bumping his elbow, causing him to slop ale over the bar.

"Encore!" the man called. "Give us a scene, o most royal of royals!"

John snorted and glanced hesitantly at Sherlock. The detective was looking at the man who had spoken with a half-amused, half-murderous expression. "We're off the stage now, mate," he replied easily, lifting his mug in a salute.

For a moment it seemed like that would be the end: the man grumbled a little and turned back to his friends, and John turned back to Ben and Sherlock with a slight smile on his face that the two of them returned. "So, John, Molly," the taller man began, "if we can wrangle these _Twelfth Night_ scripts from Shakespeare before the night is out, we ought to arrange to read through them together. Perhaps the two of you will have scenes together this time."

"We don't," Ben interrupted, making a regretful face at John. "I asked him. He says he doesn't want Orsino and Olivia to see each other until the end, because the whole point of Viola being there is that Olivia has refused to let Orsino near her."

John returned the regretful expression, trying not to smile at the fact that Ben had _asked_ the playwright if they would play together. "Oh, well," he said. "Perhaps next time. I'd love to watch the two of you rehearse, though, we could still meet up with the three of us."

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again with a snap and looked over at the group congregating around Will once more. They had apparently not taken John's polite refusal as an answer, and had instead began a low chant of _a scene, a scene_ that was steadily rising to a shout. "Ignore them," John told him.

"They won't give up, you know," the detective informed him. He opened his mouth to reply that they _would_ , eventually, but Sherlock was draining his mug of ale dramatically - with his head tipped back and his throat working visibly, distracting John for a moment - and almost slamming it down on the bar. "Come on, John," he said briskly, striding into the foot or so of space between them and Will's group of audience.

_"What black magician conjures up this fiend,  
To stop devoted charitable deeds?" _Sherlock cried, wringing his hands together in sudden emotion.

Caught by surprise, John replied before he could realise that the line hadn't been from _A Midsummer Night's Dream._ He snarled the automatic reply instead. " _Villains, set down the corpse; or by Saint Paul,  
I'll make a corpse of him that disobeys." _

Once the line had left his lips, he recognised it as _Richard III_ ; accordingly, he slumped where he stood into the diminutive, threatening posture of the character he had finished playing mere months ago, raising one eyebrow curiously at the detective.

Gradually, the pub hushed as more of its patrons turned to watch Sherlock glare daggers at John, who looked around; the next line was not from either of the characters that he and Sherlock had adopted, and he didn't think Ben knew it, allowing the pause to grow awkwardly as he waited for it.

He met Will's eyes, and the playwright cupped his hands around his mouth and cried playfully, _"My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass."_

_"Unmanner'd dog!_ " John cried, rounding on him. " _Stand thou, when I command:  
Advance thy halbert higher than my breast,  
Or by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot  
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness."_

Sherlock, too, rounded on their impromptu audience in accusation. _"What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?"_ he chastised, gesturing furiously towards John.  
 _"Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,  
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil._" He turned back to John, eyes burning.  
 _"Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!  
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,  
His soul thou canst not have: therefore be gone." _

John gave Will one last tiny grin, letting the joy of performing with Sherlock overtake him once more. _"Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst,"_ he pleaded, adopting a fawning disposition and taking a tentative step towards the detective.

Sherlock backed away from him, working himself into a rage. " _Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not,"_ he almost screamed.  
 _"For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,  
Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.  
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,  
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.  
O, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds  
Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!  
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;  
For tis thy presence that exhales his blood  
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;  
Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,  
Provokes this deluge supernatural.  
O God, which this blood madest, revenge his death!  
O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!  
Either heaven with lightning strike the murderer dead,  
Or earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,  
As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood  
Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!"_

The speech over, Sherlock quietened into gasps and tiny sobs; John let him, marveling inwardly at his absolute passion. A few people in their gathering audience clapped briefly. John waited until the detective seemed to have composed himself a little before replying calmly, _"Lady, you know no rules of charity,  
Which renders good for bad, blessing for curses." _

Sherlock pulled himself upright once more, stepping towards John in rebuttal. _"Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor man:  
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity." _

The detective took a slinking step to his left as he spoke, so John stepped to his own left as he replied, holding the player's gaze, like dogs circling each other in preparation for a fight. _"But I know none,"_ he protested innocently, _"and therefore am no beast."_

" _O wonderful, when devils tell the truth,_ " Sherlock snorted, not releasing him from their locked gaze and movement.

_"More wonderful, when angels are so angry,"_ John replied, quietly now that they seemed to have the attention of the entire pub.  
 _"Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,  
Of these supposed crimes to give me leave_

_By circumstance but to acquit myself."_

He'd always enjoyed the back-and-forth of this scene, and suspected that the character of Anne enjoyed it too; Sherlock's eyes danced as he continued to circle. _"Vouchsafe, diffused infection of a man,_ " he spat back,  
 _"For these known evils, but to give me leave  
By circumstance, t'accuse thy cursed self." _

John held out his hands in placation. _"Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have  
Some patient leisure to excuse myself," _he pleaded.

_"Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make  
No excuse current, but to hang thyself," _came the lightening-fast reply.

" _By such despair, I should accuse myself,_ " John protested.

_"And, by despairing, should thou stand excused;  
For doing worthy vengeance on thyself,  
Which didst unworthy slaughter upon others."_

Their circle was growing gradually tighter as they stepped around each other, and to John's delight, their audience was following them, closing around them until their makeshift stage had lost a third of its size. _"Say I slew them not?"_ he asked, tilting his head to one side. One decisive step forwards and he would be close enough to touch Sherlock now, but kept his hands in front of him, clasped together in a mockery of chastity.

Sherlock snorted. _"Then say they were not slain,_ " he responded harshly, bending his torso towards John for a moment before withdrawing, as though they were both ignorant of how close to each other they had become. " _But dead they are, and devilish slave, by thee."_

_"I did not kill your husband,"_ John insisted.

_"Why, then he is alive._ "

John bent his head as if to acknowledge her point, letting a sudden, unnerving smile break through his mocking sympathy. " _Nay, he is dead - and slain by Edward's hand."_

The detective actually reached out and pushed him away slightly as he retorted. " _In thy foul throat thou liest!_ " he cried. _"Queen Margaret saw  
Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;  
The which thou once didst bend against her breast,  
But that thy brothers beat aside the point."_

_"I was provoked by her slanderous tongue,_ " John said, gesturing innocently to himself, _  
"Which laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders."_

_"Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,  
Which never dream'st on aught but butcheries!"_ Sherlock scolded him, tossing his head in fury. Someone wolf-whistled in the crowd.  
 _"Didst thou not kill this king?_ " he continued.

John spared an amused glance at the man who had whistled before sobering his expression and tilting his head to one side again. " _I grant ye,"_ he allowed.

Sherlock's nostrils flared. _"Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me too  
Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!  
O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!_" He settled once more for wringing his hands in grief, glancing back over at Will and his group, that seemed to have assumed the role of the entourage around his dead husband.

_"The better for the King of Heaven, that hath him,_ " John consoled, lifting a hand to Sherlock's shoulder, now within his reach.

The detective shrugged him off furiously. " _He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come,"_ he agreed.

Not to be deterred, John slid his hand back up Sherlock's arm until it rested on his shoulder once more; when he lifted the other to stroke his face, the taller man caught it in his own, so that when they continued to circle it became more like a reluctant dance. _"Let him thank me, that holp to send him thither,_ " John continued, stepping so close to Sherlock that his breath blew across his upturned face. _  
"For he was fitter for that place than earth."_

_"And thou unfit for any place but hell,_ " Sherlock retorted, but given that he had not let go of either of John's hands, the comment lost a fair amount of its sting.

John smirked at him. " _Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it,"_ he said softly, sliding the hand on Sherlock's shoulder into the hairs at the nape of his neck and back down again.

Sherlock's lip curled. " _Some dungeon,_ " he guessed.

_"Your bedchamber_ ," John retorted.

He expected his friend to push him away in disgust, break their circle and their eye-movements, but Sherlock froze instead, stopping their circle but leaving himself in John's arms, looking down at him in shock. _"Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest,"_ he spat quietly.

_"So will it, madam, till I lie with you_ ," John said earnestly, and this time when he reached up the hand not clasped within the detective's own Sherlock allowed him to stroke his pale cheek with the back of one finger. His skin tingled at the contact.

Sherlock breathed in shakily, trembling slightly as though resisting the urge to fall into John's arms. _"I hope so,"_ he said, not at all sounding sincere.

John grinned. _"I know so,"_ he affirmed. " _But, gentle Lady Anne,  
To leave this keen encounter of our wits  
And fall somewhat into a slower method,  
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths  
Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,  
As blameful as the executioner?" _

Sherlock blinked, as if he had suddenly realised whose arms he was leaning into, and shoved at John so hard that he almost fell, saved only by the fact that their audience had pressed close enough to the two of them to catch him. " _Thou art the cause,"_ he snapped, standing over John and glaring at him as the audience propped him back onto his feet with a few muttered bawdy comments, _"and most accursed effect."_

_"Your beauty was the cause of that effect,"_ John insisted,  
 _"Your beauty: which did haunt me in my sleep  
To undertake the death of all the world  
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom." _

He shrugged off the audience member who was still holding onto one of his arms with a false smile and stepped hopefully towards Sherlock, who retreated from him in disgust. _"If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide;  
These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks."_

John fell to his knees, trying not to wince as it became evident that the pub floor was harder than the stage in the Globe. _"These eyes could not endure sweet beauty's wreck;_

_You should not blemish it, if I stood by,  
As all the world is cheered by the sun,  
So I by that: it is my day, my life." _He reached out beseechingly to Sherlock, who turned pointedly away from him and back to the audience.

_"Black night o'ershade thy day,"_ he pronounced ringingly, _"and death thy life."_

John shuffled forwards slightly on his knees, throwing his arms wide in surrender. _"Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both_ ," he cried.

Sherlock whirled back to him, bending his torso as though showing off how much taller he was than John. _"I would I were, to be revenged on thee,"_ he snarled back.

_"It is a quarrel most unnatural,  
To be revenged on him that loveth you,"_ John replied innocently, turning his head to follow the detective when he began to walk circles around him.

_"It is a quarrel just and reasonable,  
To be revenged on him that killed my husband,"_ came the response. Sherlock seemed to be attempting to pretend that John didn't exist, while still almost helplessly still engaging in their stichomythic banter.

He smiled to himself once more. " _He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,  
Did it to help thee to a better husband." _

Sherlock turned his nose up at him. _"His better doth not breathe upon the earth."_

_"He lives that loves thee better than he could,"_ John argued, rising to one knee and shuffling slightly towards Sherlock, who merely adjusted the trajectory of his circle to compensate for the movement.

_"Name him,_ " the detective challenged, momentarily pausing in his circle before seeming to check himself and carry on.

John threw his arms wide. _"Plantagenet,"_ he said proudly. Someone in the audience whooped; John shot them a grin.

Sherlock tutted in irritation. _"Why, that was he,"_ he agreed, gesturing towards Shakespeare once more.

_"The selfsame name,_ " John agreed, _"but one of better nature."_

_"Where is he?"_ his friend asked, whirling around on one heel in order to glare properly at John as he clambered to his feet.

He let the pause hang for a moment as he stood, hands by his sides, watching Sherlock warily. Then he lifted his palms and said quietly, _"Here."_ Sherlock drew in a furious breath, held it for a moment, and then spat at John's feet. John, who had expected him to aim the gesture at his face, stepped backwards in surrender. _"Why dost thou spit at me?"_ he asked in outrage.

Sherlock turned his back self-righteously. _"Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!"_ he sneered.

_"Never came poison from so sweet a place,"_ he beseeched, stepping closer and forcing the detective to sidestep him.

_"Never hung poison on a fouler toad,"_ Sherlock retorted over one shoulder.  
 _"Out of my sight! Thou dost infect my eyes."_

John followed him once more, again forcing him to stride to the other side of their makeshift stage. _"Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine,"_ he tried.

_"Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!"_ his friend replied.

_"I would they were, that I might die at once;  
For now they kill me with a living death." _John advanced slowly on Sherlock, who pretended not to care, as he gave Richard's rather long speech to guilt-trip Anne, almost falling to one knee again before deciding against it in case the ground prevented him from getting up again.  
 _"I never sued to friend nor enemy;  
My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;  
But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,  
_ _My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak."_

Sherlock turned his head to finally acknowledge John's approach, lips pursed in a dismissive moue. He allowed the touch when John ran the lightest of fingers across the swell of his bottom lip.

_"Teach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made  
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt." _Sherlock snorted once more, and John hurriedly looked around at his audience and spotted a pair of crossed stage swords behind the bar; he gave the barman a meaningful look until the man took one down and handed it to him.  
 _"If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,_ " he continued, slowly easing himself onto one knee and offering Sherlock the sword,  
 _"Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;  
Which if thou please to hide in this true bosom,  
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee." _Sherlock grudgingly took the sword, and John - after briefly considering the state of his wardrobe and finances - took hold of his shirt and ripped it apart, baring his chest to the detective. Ben whooped, setting off a tiny round of applause from the audience.  
 _"I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,  
And humbly beg the death upon my knee."_

Sherlock hesitated, then took a fencer's pose offering at his breast, but didn't strike. John shook his arms emphatically. _"Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,  
But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.  
Nay, now dispatch: 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,  
But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on."_

Again the pause sat heavily between them, as Sherlock's hand that held the sword aloft trembled violently and they stared at each other. Then the taller man lifted his hand slightly and dropped the weapon at John's feet.

_"Take up the sword again,"_ John pleaded, _"or take up me."_

Sherlock heaved a great sigh. " _Arise, dissembler,_ " he said grudgingly. _"Though I wish thy death,  
I will not be the executioner."_

_"Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it,"_ John compromised, not rising from his knee.

_"I have already_ ," the detective insisted, though he didn't meet John's eyes.

John stood slowly. _"Tush,"_ he dismissed. _"That was in thy rage:  
Speak it again, and even with the word,  
That hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,  
Shall, _for _thy love, kill a far truer love:  
To both their deaths thou shalt be accessary."_

His co-star stared at him for a long moment. _"I would I knew thy heart,"_ he said finally.

_"Tis figured in my tongue,"_ John claimed immediately, returning to their lightening-fast repartee.

Sherlock made an impatient noise. _"I fear me both are false,"_ he said.

John quirked the tinest of smiles. _"Then never man was true."_

_"Well, well, put up your sword,"_ the detective relented, waving a hand to emphasise the request.

_"Say, then, my peace is made,"_ John entreated as he handed the sword back to the barman.

Sherlock turned his head away dismissively. _"That shalt thou know hereafter."_

_"But shall I live in hope?"_ John asked.

He was rewarded with a small, reluctant smile. _"All men, I hope, live so,"_ the detective replied.

John slipped a ring from his index finger and offered it to Sherlock, grabbing one of his thin-fingered hands in both of his own. _"Vouchsafe to wear this ring,"_ he begged, sliding it with little resistance onto Sherlock's long ring finger.

_"To take is not to give,"_ the man told him half-heartedly.

He held up his new love's hand as if looking for the audience's approval, which they gave him noisily with another round of smattered applause. _"Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger:_

_Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;_

_Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.  
And if thy poor devoted suppliant may  
But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,  
Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever."_

Sherlock made another show of reluctance, but finally relented with a muttered, _"What is it?"_

_"That it would please thee leave these sad designs  
To him that hath more cause to be a mourner," _John finished, stroking one finger down the detective's pale cheek.  
 _"And presently repair to Crosby Place;  
Where, after I have solemnly interr'd  
At Chertsey monastery this noble king,  
And wet his grave with my repentant tears,  
I will with all expedient duty see you:  
For divers unknown reasons. I beseech you,  
Grant me this boon."_

Leaving John's hand where it was - resting intimately at the soft hollow of his throat - Sherlock smiled weakly. _"With all my heart,"_ he said softly, " _and much it joys me too,  
To see you are become so penitent."_ He waved an imperious hand at Will's table.  
 _"Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me."_

John caught the hand in midair with his own and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to it. _"Bid me farewell,"_ he said, locking his eyes with Sherlock's own.

_"Tis more than you deserve;  
But since you teach me how to flatter you,  
Imagine I have said farewell already." _And with that, Sherlock pulled his hand from John's grasp, gave one final glance in Will's direction, and then swanned off of their makeshift stage and into the audience.

Will cheered; Ben joined in almost immediately, and the rest of the pub quickly followed, whooping and clapping and slapping the two of them on the back. Sherlock looked down at John over the drink someone had slapped into his hand and grinned. John rolled his eyes cheerfully and accepted his own drink from one of the men who had been sitting with Will.

Apparently Sherlock didn't mind being the centre of attention, as long as he didn't have to acknowledge the people who were paying him that attention.

"You know, for never having worked with Will before, you certainly know a lot of his work by heart," John commented under the applause of the crowd.

Sherlock's mouth twisted in a smile. "Just because I've never done one of Shakespeare's plays before doesn't mean I've never wanted to. Before I went abroad I used to use Shakespeare as an audition repertoire on the rare occasion I had to audition for parts."

John quirked a smile at the casual way in which Sherlock scorned the need for beginning actors to audition: he didn't imagine it would have happened very often for him. The way that Ben told it, the detective could have walked into any part in London after only a few performances for people to see what he was like. Usually only relatively unknown actors had to audition, before they were snapped up by a company or the theatres grew to know them well enough to offer them parts without auditioning them.

"A lot of Shakespeare's work is quite unique," Sherlock continued, watching the playwright almost hit his forehead on the table as he laughed. "I recognise that he draws inspiration from other sources, but the way that he puts them together is different from what everyone else is doing." The two of them stared at Will for a moment. "I think if anything from this time survives thousands of years into the future, it could well be the work of William Shakespeare."

John grinned at his friend when Will looked up at him. "Everyone thought he was stupid at school," he told Sherlock. "I was the only person who knew him well enough to know there was something behind his complete lack of concentration. A few people we knew turned up the first time we played a draft form of _A Comedy of Errors_ back in the Crown, just a collection of scenes, it wasn't even a play yet. I still remember the looks on their faces when they realised it was genius."

The detective's grey-green eyes fixed on his face for a moment. Then he smiled softly. "You were in love with him," he deduced, lowering his voice to keep the secret from the people still pressing in on them.

It wasn't really a secret, so John only smiled. "I still am, in a way," he admitted. "It's just different now. We were young, and that kind of love... I've always kind of thought that was what he drew on with _Romeo and Juliet_ \- I honestly believed back then that if he died, I would die too. And then I joined the army, and when I came back from Ireland he was married." Sherlock raised an eyebrow, as though he was aiming for sympathy and not quite reaching it. John frowned.

"I've actually never met Anne," he said thoughtfully. "I don't think he wants me to, even now. Well, now I don't think _he_ wants to see her either. I got sent to Brest before I could really react, and then by the time we saw each other again we'd both sort of come to terms with it. He's still my best friend, and I'd do anything for him, but it's different."

At his table, Will looked up at John once more to find the two of them staring at him and grinned. John tried not to look sheepish. "I always suspected there was a male lover in Shakespeare's past," the detective told him, sounding like he wanted to be smug about the discovery but a part of him was refusing to play along. John looked at him, surprised at the undertone of the words; Sherlock was still looking at John, a tiny frown buried between his eyebrows even as his lips smiled. "There are so many homoerotic subtexts to his close male friendships, particularly in his early work. That's another reason I've always enjoyed it."

"What, the homoerotic subtext?" John teased, but given Sherlock's earlier comments he supposed the tease seemed rather redundant.

The detective grinned anyway. "It's always fun on stage. How far can you push it before it stops being subtext and becomes explicit?" John shrugged in grudging agreement. He enjoyed that himself, although he had discovered that it took a certain kind of co-star to pull it off. " _Twelfth Night_ is particularly good," Sherlock added after a moment, "because you really _have_ to take it right to that line, or the romantic conclusion won't seem as important. And it works both ways - with Orsino and Cesario, but also with Viola and Olivia."

John chuckled. Every time he contemplated this play it sounded like more fun. "So, provided we can actually get hold of these scripts tonight, if I just go to Angelo's in the early morning we could read over them together?" he confirmed with the detective.

Sherlock nodded happily. "Of course, John." His long fingers toyed with the rim of his mug, drawing John's eyes as they stroked absently. "Lestrade will most likely depart for Sussex tomorrow, so we shouldn't be disturbed by those investigations, although he may pop by himself to discuss the questions he ought to be asking the inn staff. But I had got the impression that you were rather enjoying that aspect of our acquaintance - you wouldn't object to the Constable stopping in, would you?"

"I don't believe I would," John grinned. The detective's eyes gleamed for a moment, a spark of something jolting down John's spine.

Will called his name from across the bar, beckoning to the two of them. He now had one arm around Ben and the other around his drink; John grinned and lifted a hand in acknowledgement. "We should go and sit with them," he said reluctantly. He'd been rather enjoying having Sherlock more or less to himself, his lips slightly loosened by the ale. "Will probably wants them to see how great we are." The detective smiled ruefully, so John lifted his mug in a final toast. "To showing off," he said brightly.

Sherlock accepted the toast, smiling wryly. "To celebrity."

* * *

John entered Angelo's inn the next morning just as the inkeeper was descending the stairs behind the bar, an empty tray in one large hand; they grinned at each other, John hanging his coat on the rack by the door with a wave of greeting.

"Morning, Master Watson," Angelo boomed, making a pair of young men at a table near the bar jump.

"Morning, Angelo - it's John, please," he returned. "You wouldn't know if Sherlock's up yet, would you? We just said 'early morning', I don't know when he…"

The inkeep nodded amiably. "Aye, he's up," he said gruffly, waving his tray in explanation. "I hear congratulations are in order for last night," he added, grinning.

John shrugged, wondering what Sherlock had said about it. "It was mostly Sherlock," he admitted.

Angelo chuckled. "He said you'd say that," he said. "Go on, up you go. Up the stairs, door furthest from the landing." He flapped a hand in the direction of the stairs, still chuckling at Sherlock's apparent joke. John shook his head in bemusement and made his way up to the room.

He'd never been in Sherlock's room before, but it wasn't difficult to find from Angelo's descriptions. His knock was met with an immediate "Come in, John," from within.

Sherlock was sitting at a wooden desk, spreading butter over a roll of bread. He smiled up at John when he entered, glancing with considerable interest around the place where his friend lived.

It was rather a mess. The desk where the detective currently sat was covered in papers; John recognised the blank verse of cue-scripts over some of them, but others appeared to be letters from various people, most likely clients. A chair against the far wall was piled high with clothes, the detective's black greatcoat taking pride of place atop them. The bed was rumpled, but it looked as though Sherlock had slept on top of it rather than inside it. When his eyes returned to his friend, the man raised an amused eyebrow over his steaming mug of tea. "Pardon the mess, John," he said, not sounding at all concerned. "I was rather too busy yesterday to put my things in order." He waved an airy hand at the plate in front of him. "Please, help yourself. I can call Angelo for more tea, if you'd like."

John shook his head. "Thank you."

The detective shrugged, dusting breadcrumbs from his fingers. "I glanced at the new material," he said, indicating it. "There's only one new scene between the two of us, but it's good."

"I read it," John told him, taking his own - significantly thinner - cue-script from his pocket. "Orsino only has one scene over these two acts. Will wants me to play some other character as well. Belch, I think he said. He'll give me the scripts later - it means I get stage time with him, and with Molly, even if it's as an ass."

Sherlock smiled thoughtfully. "Yes, he mentioned that he was playing Malvolio," he said, cupping his mug between long-fingered hands. "From what I've heard, he and Molly will have fun with it. Do you mind if I drink while we read?"

"Please," John allowed him. He shook out his cue-scripts as the detective climbed to his feet and kicked a pair of shoes and a light travelling-case out of their way, clearing a space in the middle of the floor for them. He waited until Sherlock had stopped fidgeting and leaned against the desk with an eyebrow cocked expectantly before he found a place to start.

_"Come hither, boy,"_ he began, and Sherlock pushed himself away from the desk eagerly. _"If ever thou shalt love,  
In the sweet pangs of it remember me:  
For such as I am, all true lovers are,  
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,  
Save in the constant image of the creature  
That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?"_

The detective smiled politely, clasping demure hands in front of his chest. _"It gives a very echo to the seat  
Where Love is throned," _he obliged.

John raised a teasing eyebrow, taking a step closer in order to nudge Sherlock in the ribs. _"Thou dost speak masterly,"_ he observed in amusement. _  
"My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye  
Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves:  
Hath it not, boy?" _

Sherlock shifted out of range of John's elbows, looking uncomfortable. _"A little, by your favour,"_ he answered reluctantly.

_"What kind of woman is't?"_ John asked, unabashed at his naked curiosity, letting a modicum of jealousy show through in his face.

The detective paused for a moment, looking John up and down as though sizing him up, then gave a tiny private smile. _"Of your complexion,"_ he said finally.

_"She is not worth thee, then,"_ John dismissed immediately; then, as though unable to resist, he stepped closer to the younger man once more. _"What years, i'faith?"_

_"About your years, my lord,"_ Sherlock admitted shyly, still with that smile as though he were laughing at a private joke.

John slapped him on the back. _"Too old by heaven!"_ he remarked. _"Let still the woman take  
An elder than herself: so wears she to him,  
So sways she level in her husband's heart:  
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,  
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,  
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,  
Than women's are." _

_"I think it well, my lord,"_ Sherlock said judiciously, with a distinct air as though he was trying to close the conversation.

John grinned at him. " _Then let thy love be younger than thyself,"_ he instructed firmly, slinging his arm around the detective's upper arms.  
 _"Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;  
For women are as roses, whose fair flower  
Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour." _

Tentatively, Sherlock leaned down and rested his head wistfully on John's shoulder as though in camaraderie. _"And so they are: alas, that they are so;  
To die, even when they to perfection grow." _He sighed, and allowed John to rub soothingly down his arm. John resisted the urge to press a kiss to the top of his head.

"And then Olivia's clown comes back in, I think," John said, looking at his script. _"O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.  
Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;  
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun  
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones  
Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth,_

_And dallies with the innocence of love,  
Like the old age." _

Sherlock smiled softly at him. "Perhaps we ought to dance," he suggested. Neither of their cue-scripts contained the song; John glanced at his own anyway. "I mean, just an impromptu few steps as he sings. Might help to build the tension that breaks when Orsino asks about Olivia again."

John nodded, stepping forwards and placing his and Sherlock's palms together between their bodies. "So we might finish like this," he expanded, glancing down at his script then locking their eyes together once more. _"Let all the rest give place,"_ he dismissed the singer.  
 _"Once more, Cesario,  
Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty:  
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,  
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands,  
The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,  
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;  
But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems  
That nature pranks her in attracts my soul."_

The detective didn't pull away, but his body sagged in disappointment. He curled his fingers slowly around John's until he was almost holding his hand. _"But if she cannot love you, sir?"_ he asked quietly.

John copied the gesture of closing his fist around Sherlock's hand, his own movement quick as though involuntary. _"I cannot be so answer'd,"_ he insisted, injecting a note of warning into his voice.

Sherlock raised a doubtful eyebrow. _"Sooth, but you must,"_ he argued, taking a quiet step closer, their hands still joined between them.  
 _"Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,  
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart  
As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her,  
You tell her so - must she not then be answer'd?" _

John shortened the distance between them by another step, looking sternly up at his friend. _"There is no woman's sides  
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion  
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart  
So big, to hold so much: they lack retention.  
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,  
No motion of the liver, but the palate,  
That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt:  
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,  
And can digest as much. Make no compare  
Between that love a woman can bear me  
And that I owe Olivia," _he scolded.

_"Ay, but I know -"_

_"What dost thou know?"_ John interrupted Sherlock's hasty retort, stepping closer again until their breaths mingled between them.

The detective actually shuddered minutely, his eyelashes fluttering. John held his own body still by sheer force of will, desperate as it seemed to be to copy the motion. _"Too well what love women to men may owe,"_ he completed, as though helplessly.  
 _"In faith, they are as true of heart as we.  
My father had a daughter loved a man,  
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,  
I should your lordship." _Sherlock's eyelids lowered slightly once more and he dipped his head closer to John's as though angling for a kiss. John tilted his face up to accommodate it, his eyes fixing on the detective's rich cupid's-bow before he could wrench them away to focus on his equally captivating eyes. It was a little distracting that Sherlock's face didn't seem to have any 'ordinary' features that he could focus on. A shudder struggled once more to break free of his chest as the younger man's tongue appeared to wet his lips, his eyes intense.

John drew an intentionally shaky breath in, as though he was aware of the desire creeping through Sherlock's lines. _"And what's her history?"_ he asked, in their tiny room allowing himself to whisper without worrying about their non-existent audience.

Sherlock gave him the ghost of a smile. _"A blank, my Lord,"_ he said, shifting his posture to give John the tiniest reprieve from their proximity. _"She never told her love,  
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,  
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,  
And with a green and yellow melancholy  
She sat like patience on a monument,  
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?  
We men say more, swear more: but indeed  
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove  
Much in our vows, but little in our love._"

After a moment's deliberation, John placed one hand on Sherlock's shoulder as if in comfort, pulling the younger man closer. _"But died thy sister of her love, my boy?"_ he asked, intently curious.

Again, Sherlock smiled a tight, sad smile. _"I am all the daughters of my father's house,  
And all the brothers too: and yet I know not." _John stared at him, still unnervingly close, trying to work out how someone could have no sisters and yet not know whether their sister was dead. Sherlock's smile widened for the briefest of moments before vanishing. John wondered how the detective would react if he kissed him again. What was his next line? _"Sir -"_

A sharp rap sounded on the door; John quickly turned, putting a step of space between the two of them, to see Angelo leaning against the frame, grinning at them. "Sorry to interrupt," the inkeep said smugly.

"What do you want?" Sherlock snapped. John was slightly gratified to see a flush high on his friend's cheekbones and a thoroughly displeased downturn at the corners of his mouth.

Angelo's grin widened. "There's a man downstairs wants to see you, Sherlock," he said, rubbing his meaty hands together. "Says he knows a Lady Brackenstall you might be looking for."

Sherlock glanced at John, his eyebrows twitching in surprise. "Very well," he said, interest creeping into his voice. "Send him up, Angelo, if you would."

He clapped his hands together lightly once the inkeep had moved off, a fire kindling in his eyes. "Well, John," he said softly. "This could prove interesting."

John hummed lightly, helping the consulting detective to clear the pile of clothing from the room's spare chair and shift it into the space they had cleared to rehearse. "Could even prove enlightening," he agreed, allowing Sherlock to settle himself authoritatively into the other chair and perching against the broad desk in front of it instead.

The man, when he arrived, was tall, tanned and nervous-looking, fidgeting with a naval cap between his hands as his dark eyes darted anxiously around the small room. He was dressed as a sailor; John felt Sherlock sit up straighter in his chair as he stepped through the door. "Master Holmes?" he asked tentatively, his eyes shifting uncertainly between the two of them.

"That would be me," Sherlock said easily, allowing the visitor a tight smile along with his calculating once-over. "This is my colleague, John Watson. He has been assisting me in the investigation into Lady Brackenstall's disappearance."

The man smiled tremulously. "Captain Jack Crocker," he introduced in a rough accent, slightly twisted from what John usually heard on the South Bank, though he couldn't identify the variation. It seemed to be an amalgam of multiple dialects, as though the sailor spent time at multiple ports that all spoke with different accents. "I work on the _Bass Rock._ I am - was - have been - Mary Brackenstall's lover."

Surprised, John looked at Sherlock, who acknowledged his surprise with a glance as he leaned forwards to rest his chin on his steepled fingertips. He watched the sailor fidget for a moment before gesturing towards the empty chair with one hand. "Take a seat, Captain Crocker," he said airily. "Tell us everything from the beginning. Watson and I may interrupt as we see fit."

John wondered with a tiny smile what Sherlock would do if he did see fit to interrupt; he was certain the detective didn't expect him to. He shifted his bottom more comfortably against the desk and watched the man instead. He looked to be in the middle of his thirties, dark hair mussed by the removal of the cap, lips red from the nervous biting he was still doing as he bent to sit in the chair with the slightest wince as though from aching muscles.

"I've been a sailor for many years, Master Holmes," he began, twisting his cap between his knees. "I was on the voyage that took Mary - Lady Brackenstall, though her name was Fraser back then - to London to be married. We didn't mean it to happen. I think she was afraid of marrying someone she'd never met, and so far away from her own home, and she turned to me for comfort. It was a long voyage to fall in love over."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow as though to indicate boredom at the love story, his chin now resting on one hand, a long finger stroking thoughtfully over his lips. His eyes were piercingly intent as he gazed at the sailor.

Crocker looked increasingly nervous at the detective's scrutiny. "We never acted on our love," he insisted. "When we arrived in London we agreed never to contact each other again, and we never did - and then last month, _years_ later, I received a letter from a member of her household. It said that Mary talked about me, and that the sender feared for her safety and didn't know whom else to turn to. It said that her husband was a horrid man and a drinker, and that he hurt her - you understand, Master Holmes, I couldn't just stand by when Mary Fraser was tied to such a man for the rest of her glorious life. So I met with her, in secret.

"She was against it, of course, but I insisted that we take her away from that life. We planned it together - we would stage a burglary, and when she went missing people would assume she'd been kidnapped or killed. When they couldn't find her, they would give up."

John frowned, glancing at Sherlock: surely there were easier ways than wasting city resources looking for someone who hadn't actually been kidnapped. And what if the Constables _had_ found her? Crocker would most likely have been executed.

The sailor sighed. "We never intended to hurt Lord Eustace. I wouldn't have been against it, but Mary insisted." Sherlock's lips twitched, but a shadow had fallen across Crocker's tanned, melancholy face.

"When the night arrived, I broke in through the window that Mary and I had agreed - I thought nothing of it being open, there was nothing to suggest anything was amiss. In the sitting room I cut down the curtains and the bell-rope without even looking at the rest of the room, frayed the ends to look as though they had been torn. And then I crossed the room to find Mary and I saw…" he stopped to take a shuddering breath in, his dark eyes sliding closed. "I saw Lord Eustace," he finished, swallowing hard. "I'll never forget it - his eyes staring up at me."

John shuddered. He could only imagine the horror of stumbling over that body in the dark. When he glanced at Sherlock, however, the detective's mouth was still bent into the tiniest of smiles. "I dared not call out, but I searched the house for Mary, and she wasn't there. Someone else was in that house that night, Master Holmes - it was I who made the room look as though it had been burgled, but I didn't kill Lord Eustace, and I certainly wouldn't have harmed Mary."

He sat back, as though relieved to have told his story. There was a moment's silence as his words faded from the air. Then Sherlock began to laugh.

John stared as the detective threw back his head to accommodate the full-throated chuckle, his shoulders shaking. Crocker frowned angrily.

"No," Sherlock dismissed when the laughter had faded. "Very nice story, but no - the way that body was placed, you couldn't possibly have cut down the bell-rope without noticing it." His smile vanished quite suddenly, and he leaned forwards once more with a slightly threatening manner.

"Now, why don't you tell me who you really are, Captain Jack Crocker?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Stichomythia_ is a term for short, quick back-and-forth lines, and this scene is possibly the only Shakespearean exchange to which I would apply it.
> 
> It also struck me while writing this chapter that I'll end up writing out these _Twelfth Night_ scenes again when they actually perform the play, to see how their understanding of the scenes and of each other changes having had the whole play and the things that happen to them between now and then. You guys don't mind, do you?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God, I've been away so long fanfiction.net has changed their entire format. I am so sorry. My life in the last few months has been a marching procession of too many overlapping events. I finished a few other projects, including my Bachelor's degree, then accidentally donated 20,000 words of Potterlock to a charity auction for Gatiss' birthday, and then once I'd finished that gargantuan project it took a while to get my brain back into 1603 in between all of the other things, and when I got here I had to fiddle around considerably with where this chapter ended and the next began. I'm here now. I'll try to stick around this time.
> 
> I confess that I did not consult my usual historical happy-maker, **Silmanumenel** , with this chapter - I really wanted to just get it up because it's been so long. If anyone spots anything please let me know.

_"Now, why don't you tell me who you really are, Captain Crocker."_

John felt shock radiate from his chest to his extremities as he looked back at the sailor, who sat frozen in place, breathing slowly.

Then he smiled. "I heard you were good, Mister Holmes," he said, leaning back in his chair with a far more comfortable air.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, seemingly unsurprised by this change in manner. "Don't insult me. I dismissed the idea of the burglary being staged by Lady Brackenstall's lover the day I began investigating the case. Tell me who you are."

Crocker seemed to hesitate, but what he said after a moment's pause was, "I can't. I'm sorry." The detective let out an impatient breath, which made the sailor sit up with a slightly anguished look. "Mary  _is_  missing, Mister Holmes," he said urgently. "And she didn't go willingly. I needed to make sure you were looking for her, to make sure you were treating it as a kidnapping and not assuming she'd run off with a lover."

"Have you spent time in Scotland, Mister Crocker?" Sherlock asked critically, clearly ignoring the other man's plea in favour of his own investigation. John raised an eyebrow: there were so many hints of different accents in the man's voice he hadn't even thought to identify any of them. He probably couldn't have picked Scottish out of the mix even if he'd tried. He wondered if Sherlock had spent time there himself amongst all of the other places he'd been.

Crocker blinked, thrown for a moment. "Three years," he answered. "I loaded cargo there before I was made Captain here. That was about a year ago."

Sherlock frowned. "Have you ever heard the name Lady Frances Carfax?"

Even John noticed the tiny flinch that the sailor made at the name, but he covered it almost immediately with a frown, like he was trying to remember. "I don't believe so," he said after a moment of this. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"If you're only going to lie to us,  _Captain Crocker,_  you may as well leave," the detective snapped. "Two women are missing, I don't have time to play guessing games."

Privately, John thought that Sherlock was more irritated by not being able to immediately know who the other man was than by the worry for the missing ladies. It did seem a bit pointless to him that this man – who definitely knew of both women – had come here with a rather transparent cover-story and no apparent reason behind revealing himself to Sherlock. He wished that he had any kind of skill at sketching, so as to capture what the man looked like.

Crocker's shoulders slumped slightly. "I only wanted to impress upon you the urgency of this case," he said solemnly.

Sherlock snorted. "Believe me, Captain, you are neither the first nor the most impressive person to attempt that. I am currently following up on several leads regarding the items that were removed from the Abbey Grange along with Lady Brackenstall. If you leave an address at which you can be contacted, I can ensure the Constabulary keep you updated on any progress made to find her."

The tiniest smile fluttered over Crocker's lips, there for a moment and then gone. Instead he heaved a sigh and levered himself from his chair. "That won't be necessary," he said resignedly. "Thank you for your time, Master Holmes."

The great detective merely raised an eyebrow, ignoring the hand that Crocker held out for him to shake. John cleared his throat awkwardly. "You too," he said, glancing at Sherlock to receive his disapproving frown with one of his own. Sherlock had systematically ignored any contribution that John had had in the investigation - admittedly there hadn't been much, but John couldn't help feel a little insulted by the detective's insistence on using the word _I_  when John was actually in the room."Can you show yourself out?"

The sailor nodded. "Thank you, Master Watson. Good day to you both."

John smiled half-heartedly. Crocker lingered for a further uncomfortable moment, then he patted down his waistcoat and left the room.

Sherlock took a long breath in and let it out just as slowly, until John began to feel dizzy in sympathy.

"Both he and Lady Carfax looked like they were begging me to investigate, but wouldn't give me any information themselves," he mused, throwing himself back from the desk and beginning to pace with no further introduction. "Did you see that little smile when I mentioned the jewellery? It's like they're trying to find out how smart I am."

John stared at him incredulously. "You're saying both women went missing because of you, because someone's trying to test you," he restated, trying to make it sound like that was the most ridiculous idea he had ever heard. "Sherlock, that's ridiculous," he added, just in case he didn't get the message from the tone. From what he'd seen of his friend's ego, it was quite possible Sherlock saw that as a reasonable explanation.

The detective waved a dismissive hand. "Not the whole case, John, of course not," he said irritably. "But anyone with any influence could find out that most of the Constabulary call me when confronted with a difficult case. Maybe that's why Lady Carfax posed as Lady Brackenstall after her disappearance. To try and gauge how intelligent I am, maybe how far I'd go for the case. Hopefully our insistence that we didn't have to tell Lestrade if she was trying to protect someone helped in that regard. And now Crocker, though I doubt that's his real name. I almost think I've seen him somewhere before, but there was no point in coming here except to introduce himself to me and me to him, maybe to let me know that he's a player in whatever game this is."

"I thought two women were missing and there wasn't time to play games," John quipped. Sherlock gave him a glare clearly designed to peel paint. John raised a flippant eyebrow in response; he'd thought that was a valid point, no matter Sherlock's reasons for making it in the first place.

" _We_ don't have time to play games," the detective rebutted. "Certainly not with people who are supposed to be on our side. I doubt the orchestrators of the kidnappings have the same worries about the Ladies." He gave John a stern look, like he should have known that himself.

John sighed. "All right. So what does it mean, then? If Crocker and Lady Carfax are trying to play games with you, does that tell us something about what's happened to them?"

Sherlock slowly lowered himself back into his chair. "It tells us that there are potentially multiple groups of people involved. If Crocker and Carfax were trying to check in on my progress with the Brackenstall case, then they're unlikely to have instigated it, although they most likely know who did. If Lady Brackenstall knew Lady Carfax's secrets - or even if someone suspected that she did - then I don't doubt Lady Carfax would be highly invested in finding her."

"But now Lady Carfax is missing too," John interjected.

The detective frowned. "Maybe she isn't," he speculated. "Maybe she's in hiding, voluntarily - she was certainly free enough to impersonate Lady Brackenstall almost a sevennight after she 'disappeared'."

John shook his head to try and stop it from spinning at the speed with which Sherlock had changed tack. "Why would she be in hiding?" he asked, attempting to slow down his friend's mind - he could almost see thoughts racing each other around the inside of his skull, a slightly dizzy expression in his grey-green eyes.

That earned a lengthy pause from Sherlock, who eventually sighed in frustration. "I don't know," he admitted reluctantly, spitting out the words as though they were foreign to him. "I don't know enough about Carfax - it's almost certainly one of these mysterious  _secrets_. Knowing that is the key to both cases, I believe, when you think about how Carfax went missing first, and  _then_  her confidant. I need to speak to someone who knew her. Mycroft seems to have told me everything that he's willing to - that leaves the maid. We'll have to arrange a meeting with her."

"The maid that Carfax dismissed?" John checked. Unsurprisingly, Sherlock replied with a glare that clearly said  _keep up_. He rolled his eyes. "You haven't seen the letter she was sent yet either, have you?"

The detective shook his head silently. "I assume Lestrade has seen it, though - Mycroft had it copied but I wanted to see the original."

John nodded, because some kind of response seemed to be necessary. Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him, considering something. "Would you accompany me? We'll stop at my brother's office to get the maid's address and make sure she still has the letter."

"Of course," John replied, grinning slightly at the fact that his friend still felt he needed to ask if John would go with him to solve crimes. Sherlock smiled, immediately vaulting himself out of his chair and picking up his coat from where it was slung over the pile of clothing on the room's other chair. John shook his head slightly, marvelling at the way Sherlock could go from practically comatose to vibrating with suppressed energy without warning. It reminded him of Will when he'd had an idea for something he was working on.

He brought it up as they swept out of the inn with an abrupt farewell to Angelo. "You and Will have a lot in common," he said idly. Sherlock raised a curious eyebrow at him, still fastening his coat over his sternum. "Have you considered spending time with him outside of the theatre? I think you'd get on really well."

To his surprise, Sherlock slowed down the brisk walk he'd started with and turned to frown at him, a flash of hurt visible in his eyes for a moment before it was whisked away. "Why do you say that?" he asked.

John hesitated, trying to assess where the hurt had been in his remarks. "So many things you do remind me of Will," he said tentatively. "You're both so brilliant at what you do, completely unique in your fields, and you have the same kind of driving energy - I just think that you'd enjoy spending time with him, that's all."

"Oh," the detective said shortly, snapping his head back to front and pushing his hands into the pockets of his coat. "Perhaps. I did notice that Shakespeare's reaction to having an idea is similar to my own. I thought that may be why I appeal to you as an acquaintance."

He said it like it meant nothing, but there was a catch in his deep voice, a kind of silent vulnerability that said the opposite. John frowned. "I don't think so," he negated firmly. "I mean - maybe I'm drawn to talent, and that's a part of it, but I think if I'd met you on Will's terms things would have worked out differently – if I'd met you as an actor first, not a detective. I appreciate the things about you that remind me of him, but really it's the things that are different about you that make me want to be friends with you."

Sherlock paused, the corners of his mouth turning up in a small smile. "Thank you, John," he said softly. John smiled back. The taller man cleared his throat briskly, clearly uncomfortable. "As to being unique in our fields, nothing is unique for long in the theatres. Shakespeare's complex and detailed characterisation of Hamlet was something I've never seen before, but I was given a glimpse of Marlowe's latest last week and he's clearly attempting to emulate it. It's doubtful people will remember that Shakespeare did it first."

John hummed agreement. "You know, there are people out there who firmly believe that Hamlet's entire character springs from the fact that he actually wants to sleep with Gertrude," he started, letting his amusement show in his voice. Sherlock arched a disbelieving eyebrow at him without otherwise acknowledging the statement, continuing his brisk walk down the cobbled street. "It actually explains a fair amount of his behaviour, when you think about it. His completely irrational disgust for her and Claudius' marriage bed is jealousy, and he can't quite bring himself to kill Claudius because he's accomplished what Hamlet couldn't, so there's a part of him that admires him." He smiled to himself. "That's the brilliant thing about Hamlet, I think. There are so many potential motivations, so many different ways you could interpret his actions, or inactions."

Sherlock suddenly stopped dead, turning in the road to face him, his face contracted in irritation. "John," he said, sounding unreasonably frustrated, " _characters are not people_. Even Hamlet. You can't pick apart their minds like they're real people."

"I know they're not," John replied, slightly taken aback by the detective's reaction to the statement. "I just meant -"

"If Hamlet's motivation really was lust for Gertrude, then Gertrude wouldn't have completely faded from the play after their bedroom scene," Sherlock interrupted violently. "If characters were people and had legitimate motivations, her story would have been more important. We don't get told how Gertrude feels about the Mousetrap or Hamlet and Laertes fighting because it doesn't  _matter_ , because Gertrude's usefulness to the play finishes after the bedroom scene." The actor wheeled around and resumed his breakneck pace, his coat flying out behind him like a stylish bat. "The only possible  _motivation_  that a character can have is to further the plot of the play, to serve the author's purpose, to drive the action forwards. If you attempt to treat them like people, then you must give every manservant who has a single line in a single scene their entire backstory. The possibilities are endless and dizzying. You simply cannot work like that."

"You tried, didn't you," John guessed, watching the rather personal way in which Sherlock had taken his statement. The detective flapped his hands, but he looked slightly surprised that John had worked him out so quickly. He slowed down slightly, his rage fading.

"I wanted to be a writer when I was younger," he admitted, looking sheepish as though this was a silly thing to want to be. "But the moment I actually started to write a play - life is just so complicated. Every single person I even  _mentioned_  needed an entire life, motivations, hopes, desires, secret sorrows. I almost went mad trying to tie everything together."

"That's why a play isn't real life," John rebutted. "It's a  _play_. We suspend our disbelief in the theatre because we have to, to find it entertaining."

Sherlock made an irritated noise. "I know, and I can't work like that," he said.

"You  _do_  work like that," John reminded him, amused now.

The detective made his dismissive hand gesture again like this was irrelevant. "When I'm acting it's fine, because I only have to worry about the motivations of  _one_  character. I don't know everything about people I only meet once in real life either, only the people who are important to me."

John wondered whether he qualified for that group; Sherlock knew an awful lot about him and his past, but most of that was information he'd either volunteered or his friend had worked out in one fell swoop the very first time they had met. He'd never  _asked_  anything about his life, but perhaps that was only because Sherlock Holmes never  _had_  to ask anything.

"Mycroft's office is around this corner," Sherlock interrupted his thoughts, nodding towards the bend in the road. John glanced at the buildings around them; he'd been so preoccupied with their argument about  _Hamlet_  that he hadn't noticed their complete change in neighbourhood. The street they were walking down was neatly paved, the sewage running down neatly hewn paths from the elaborate buildings on either side. John whistled. He supposed it shouldn't be surprising, given the way Mycroft had dressed and spoken like he was on first-name terms with the Queen.

The building Sherlock eventually turned into was richly furnished in pale stone, edged in intricate windows. John couldn't help but be intimidated by it: every item of clothing he owned would have been underdressed, and he was definitely regretting not having shaved that morning even though Archie the costumer liked to do it himself.

Sherlock led him up a flight of stairs as he gawked at the architecture, eventually emerging into an antechamber where a secretary sat at a desk beside a heavy dark wooden door, his sleeves rolled up to avoid ink blots from where he was painstakingly copying something. John couldn't help noticing that the man was both surprisingly young to be a secretary to someone as important as Mycroft seemed to be and incredibly attractive, with dark hair trained backwards over his head and a light flush across his high cheekbones. Sherlock didn't seem to notice, marching right up to his desk with his usual impersonal stride and drawing a deep breath.

"Sherlock Holmes," the young brunet pre-empted calmly as they approached the desk, flicking his sleeves back down his arms as he lay aside his pen.

Sherlock frowned heavily. "How do you know me?" he asked.

The secretary smiled in a mysterious kind of way that he had clearly practiced. "You're Master Holmes' brother. He mentioned you would be coming. You're after a name and address, which I have here for you."

John couldn't suppress an amused smile at the youth's manner and the way his crisp diction had obviously put Sherlock off his stride. The detective snatched the piece of paper from the outstretched delicate hand with an irritated huff; the brunet smiled politely in response. John cleared his throat. "Sorry about him," he excused. The secretary's dark eyes flickered to him, an amused smile playing across his lips. "I'm John."

"John Watson, Lord Chamberlain's Men," the youth completed.

"Have you seen us play?" John asked, flattered. Sherlock snorted impatiently from beside him.

The brunet's smile widened. "Master Holmes described you to me," he corrected.

John felt his stomach sink slightly and tried not to let his disappointment show on his face. "Ah," he said instead. He paused to allow the man to offer his own name; when he didn't, John rocked uncomfortably on the balls of his feet. "Right. Well. That was all you needed, wasn't it, Sherlock?" he distracted lamely.

Sherlock smirked. "Yes, that was all," he confirmed. " _Don't_  thank Mycroft for me."

He turned on his heel - his coat flaring out around him like a doxy's skirt - and began to stride out of the room. John smiled weakly at the secretary. "Thank you for your help," he said, but the youth had already rolled his sleeves back up and returned to his copying. He sighed and followed his friend back down the stairs instead.

"Nicely handled, Master Watson," the detective said dryly, smirking at John as they left the building.

John flushed angrily. "Shut up," he rebutted. "I was just being polite." Sherlock raised an incredulous eyebrow and John gave in - subtlety was not a skill that the Globe cultivated in its actors. "Shut up," he repeated, grinning. "It was worth a try."

"Mycroft's assistant was worth a try," Sherlock repeated, sounding amused. "You have interesting taste."

"Apparently," John had to agree.  _I fancy you, after all_ , his mind added wistfully. "Although I also don't have your aversion to any sentence that could possibly have the word  _Mycroft_  in it."

The taller man shrugged nonchalantly. "You just haven't spent enough time with him," he insisted. John grinned: he understood Sherlock's vehement dislike of his brother. His own sister seemed to have the same attitude towards him, most likely because she was older but he had been given far more opportunities. She'd always resented being born female and had seemed to blame John simply because he hadn't been.

He sighed in defeat. "Well, he's not likely to want to spend any  _more_ time with me, is he?" he said, closing the matter. "And quite clearly, neither is his assistant." Sherlock smiled again. "Although," John added, mainly to get a reaction from the other man, "if he'd recognised me from the theatre I would have had more luck."

"Oh, yes," the detective snorted. "Your acting skills are irresistable."

John grinned at him. "I gather from past experience that they are, yes," he said.

Sherlock swallowed, looking away; from where he stood, John couldn't tell if the gesture was biting back a scathing retort or admitting his point.

Either way, it kept the detective quiet for the next few streets. John grew bored with the silence rather quickly, instead starting to whistle the song of sexual prosperity from  _Dream_  with the vague thought that Sherlock might join in and attempt to learn the tune.

"Stop that," Sherlock snapped instead after the first few lines.

John stopped. "Sorry," he said, allowing the bewilderment to show in his voice as though hinting that his friend's response had been rudely abrupt.

The detective frowned at him. "I'm trying to think, and that  _sound_ …" he made an odd sort of clawing gesture, as though trying to rip it from his mind. "It paralyses my brain," he tried to explain.

"I see," John lied. "I'll stop, then." Sherlock twitched one corner of his mouth upwards in acknowledgment and fell back into moody silence.

He waited for a few moments in case the other man began to think  _aloud_ ; when he didn't, John fell into his own thoughts.

So it seemed Sherlock thought that Carfax - and now this Crocker bloke - were manipulating him, spoon-feeding him the case to judge how intelligent he was. He couldn't help but think that the biggest thing that this told them was the extent of the detective's arrogance, whether deserved or not. On the one hand, the Queen was after Lady Carfax, so she must be someone important. On the other, if she had gone missing of her own accord, why was she playing around with Sherlock instead of telling someone like Mycroft that she was safe?

_If you want a crime solved,_ Sherlock had said,  _you either have to do it yourself, or hire someone like me. And there are no people like me. Only me._

To be fair to Sherlock, even Mycroft had come to him for assistance with the matter, although it had sounded like the elder Holmes had wanted someone else to do the legwork more than he wanted his younger brother's crime-solving expertise. Maybe he really was simply the only person they could contact to solve their mystery.

"I've been thinking," John admitted finally, pausing to allow the detective to raise the expected incredulous eyebrow without comment. "It seems a bit pointless that Lady Carfax is spending all this time trying to get  _you_  to understand her case instead of going straight to Mycroft and his people to tell the Queen that she's safe."

Sherlock hummed, but he didn't sound particularly interested. "Unless she's not safe," he completed ominously, not looking at John.

The maid lived at the top of a shared house near the South Bank. John wrinkled his nose as he avoided someone emptying a chamber-pot from a middle-storey window, grateful that he'd managed to avoid the shared houses himself. Sherlock was still buried in his own mind; John had to fling out a hand to stop him from stepping in a puddle of effluent. The detective gave him a grateful smile before stepping onto the wooden boards that served as pedestrian walkways. "This house," he pointed.

Sherlock knocked easily on the door at the top of the stairs, giving John a reassuring smile as he did so. John wondered why he needed to be reassured. "Miss Devine?" he called as he knocked.

The door opened tentatively, a young woman with flushed cheeks peeking nervously out from behind it. "Yes?" she squeaked, her eyes widening as she took in the state of Sherlock's dress. Her mousy hair was wildly escaping the tight bun she had scraped it into, and she looked as though they had interrupted her in the middle of something physical.

The detective turned his reassuring smile on her; John raised an eyebrow. Perhaps Sherlock had only directed it at him to practise it. "Miss Devine, my name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my colleague John Watson. We're here investigating the disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax."

"Oh," the maid said, not relaxing. "Yes – come in, of course." She opened the door wide enough for John and Sherlock to step through and then closed it sharply behind her. "Are you with the constabulary?" she asked, gesturing towards the rickety-looking dining table.

Sherlock flicked his coat out behind him as he sat where she was indicating. "I'm a consulting detective," he said, as though this explained anything instead of confusing her further. "I am not associated with Her Majesty's Justices, but on this instance I am assisting Constable Lestrade in his investigations."

Marie Devine nodded vaguely. "Excuse me for a moment, sirs - I presume you wish to see the letter that my Lady sent me?"

The detective nodded sharply. "Thank you," John supplied on his behalf. She left the room quickly and returned clutching a piece of heavy parchment to her chest.

"I thought something might be wrong when my Lady went to Sussex without me," the young woman admitted, sinking into a chair opposite Sherlock. John looked around for a third chair before settling himself standing behind Sherlock's, one hand on the high back of the chair to avoid touching the detective in ways that he might forget about and get carried away. "She never goes - never _went_ anywhere without me. But she said she wanted to be alone, and she promised to write to me, and I was so busy with the wedding -"

"You're getting married, Miss Devine?" Sherlock interrupted, raising an interested eyebrow.

The maid blushed pleasantly. "In June," she said. "I never would have met him without my Lady. She's been so kind to me." Sherlock smiled encouragingly. Devine fell back to toying nervously with the edge of the parchment. "She wrote to me once a week for three weeks, and then her next letter was this one, dismissing me and paying for my wedding. It's not like her at all, and she hadn't given any warning in her last letter, so I reported it."

Sherlock nodded slowly. "May we see the other letters as well, Miss Devine?" he asked, unusually polite. "Did anything in them strike you as strange?"

Devine shook her head with a frown. "No," she completed. "She wrote about the people that she met in Sussex. At the time I didn't think it was strange - Lady Frances made friends easily. She was interested in people."

"At the time?" Sherlock repeated questioningly.

The young maid worried her lower lip between her teeth. "Well, now she's disappeared. I can't help but think the people she was with might have… especially the two that she told me she would leave with. She planned to come back to London with some couple that she met at her inn."

"Can you tell me anything about this couple?" Sherlock asked urgently. John could feel the tension pull the detective's shoulders together as he sat up straighter, as though he could jump up and run to Sussex if it was required of him.

Devine nodded nervously. "I can give you her letters, sir. She said he was a religious man - Slessinger, his name was." Sherlock shook his head minutely. "I don't know anything that isn't in those letters, Master Holmes, and nothing about them seemed out of character to me except her final letter. I think even a complete stranger could see the difference between the two."

Sherlock reached across the small table to pat the woman comfortingly on the back of the hand. "Thank you, Miss Devine," he said softly. "I only have two more questions - would you say that Lady Frances acted any differently before she left? You mentioned that it was unusual for her to go alone."

"It was," the maid nodded, "but it wasn't unheard of. My Lady likes to be a little mysterious from time to time. I always worry, but she  _had_  behaved this way before."

John couldn't help but smile; he knew the feeling. Sherlock gave him a quick look, as though predicting his amusement, but didn't say anything. "Thank you," he repeated. "Did Lady Frances have any enemies that you knew of? People who didn't like her, maybe people that she accidentally upset?"

Devine sniffed. "You mean people already in her life who might want to hurt her?" she simplified. John smiled. "I don't think so. She was widowed so young she had to keep people on her side to survive."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow; the maid flushed as though reconsidering the sense of her statement. John hadn't thought of it as a silly thing to say - a young widow was expected to fend for herself, but depending on how young she was when she had been married, often had not developed an understanding of how to do so. Lady Carfax had struck him as a composed and capable woman, but how long had it taken her to learn to project that image? "I'll just fetch you the letters, sir," she said uncomfortably, pushing herself back from the table and leaving the room.

John frowned at Sherlock when the detective turned green-grey eyes sparkling with interest on him; upon seeing the frown, Sherlock's face fell into confusion. "What?" he asked.

"The woman is worried for her mistress - and probably her friend," John rebuked softly. "She's trying to help, you don't need to treat her like she's stupid."

Sherlock snorted. "That was a stupid answer," he retorted. "Everyone has enemies.  _Particularly_ young widows, even  _more_  particularly young widows who look like Lady Carfax - any suitors would think they were doing her a favour until she turned them down, any friends of her husband would think she had something to do with his death, the list of things that she can't  _avoid_  doing to make herself enemies is endless."

John sighed. "And unless they were openly hostile, Marie Devine wouldn't know that they existed."

The detective looked like he wanted to argue, but the maid re-entered the room clutching a heavier bundle of papers and he closed his mouth. He accepted the package without comment, instead simply shaking them out, his eyes flying across the first one. Devine looked up at John, unsure how to react. He tried a grateful smile as his friend read through the letters at lightening speed; John glanced down at the first one and tried to read along, but Sherlock seemed to read faster than John could even process what his eyes were telling him.

Quite suddenly, the detective stood up, his chair scraping obnoxiously across the floor. John winced. "Thank you for your time, Miss Devine," Sherlock said abruptly, waving the letters at her with a brief and glaringly false smile. "These are incredibly helpful. I will ensure that someone keeps you informed with our progress in this investigation."

Devine smiled, but the expression was lost on Sherlock, who was already halfway out the door.

He didn't stop until he reached the boarding of the street outside, forcing John to run to keep up and almost collide with the back of him. "Are you okay?" John asked, though he had a strong suspicion that Sherlock had simply had an idea and wished to follow it up as quickly as possible without regard to either of the other people who had been in the room.

But when Sherlock turned to look at him, he looked shaken, his lips pressed tightly together. "I didn't want to say anything around Miss Devine," he said quietly, holding out a page of the letters to John, who took it and read the sentence that Sherlock indicated to him.

_Today I became acquainted with another guest at the inn, Raymond Slessinger, a most singular man in both name and education - his left ear is all tatters, injured in a religious ceremony that he happened upon in Spain, of all places._

John looked back up at Sherlock. "A ruined left ear," he repeated questioningly. "You recognise this Slessinger?"

The detective tipped his head to one side curiously. "Not as Raymond Slessinger," he said quietly, taking back the letter and tucking it swiftly back into his coat pocket. "But it can't be a coincidence. And if that man is who I think he is…" he shook his head shortly.

"It doesn't bode well for either Lady," John finished for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea that _characters are not people_ is taken pretty much straight from the work of Stephen Orgel, who uses the exact same Gertrude example. Also, I doubt that people were really applying Freudian theories to _Hamlet_ mere months after it came out, but I had fun with it.
> 
> Marie Devine and Raymond Slessinger (so-called) are from Doyle's _The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax_ , and Captain Crocker is from _The Abbey Grange_.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long one, but I got stupidly attached to my cheesy dramatic ending as usual. Once again I have skipped my historical consultant for this one, because it's been so long I'm kind of ashamed to come crawling back to her. Silmanumenel, if you end up reading this, I apologise. Also, I used the MIT Shakespeare text for this chapter and haven't had time to check it against my Norton version, if that bothers anyone.

"It's been very interesting, writing for you and Sherlock knowing the way you work together," Will said, days later as the two of them reclined over lunch and the first draft of the final acts of  _What You Will._ "There are so many different ways a script could showcase your chemistry and skill together, choosing just one for this play was difficult. I hope you'll let me write more for the two of you."

John grinned. "I'll be game if Sherlock is," he assured his friend. He wasn't sure what  _way_  Will had used to showcase their skill for the script he had just been given, though: Orsino and Viola barely acknowledged each other the entire time. "And I really hope he is."

The playwright tipped his head to one side, considering John thoughtfully. "I was told he was a loner," he said after a moment's thought. "And yet since you two met, you've barely spent a moment apart. You rehearse together, you're solving this crime thing together, and even when you were performing and he wasn't he would stop whatever he was doing to watch. I think he'll be game."

John considered this. He hadn't heard of Sherlock being a 'loner' before they met, but the idea didn't surprise him. He hadn't seen many people in their interactions who seemed willing to 'put up with' the detective for very long. "I don't know why," he admitted. "I've been thinking about that. He definitely wants to spend time with me, but… I want to be around him because he's  _brilliant_ , it's exhilarating and inspiring to walk next to him. But I'm just ordinary, he can't get the same thrill from being around me."

Will smiled softly. "You see people differently," he said, fondness creeping through his voice. "You don't judge people by the things that normal society does - you look at Sherlock and I and you see genius, where most other people just saw  _weird_. If he really is anything like me, he'll keep you around because you treat him like he's special, instead of treating him like he's foreign."

"The rest of the world thinks you're special," John counteracted, flattered nonetheless.

The playwright shrugged. "I'm not sure they would if you hadn't."

Remembering how people had seemed to react to Will as a teenager, John sobered slightly and they sat in silence for a moment or two. Then his oldest friend leant forwards in his chair. "John," he said seriously. "I appreciate that you two get along, I really do. But just be careful that you don't get too involved. He's famous for being flighty, that's why he's never joined a theatre company, and I don't want you to get hurt if he bounces on to the next thing and you've got too much invested in him."

John frowned. He knew it had only been a few weeks, but he had trouble imagining moving back to a life that didn't have Sherlock in it in  _some_  capacity. They had spent time together every day since they met - on the days where they did not perform the new  _Dream_  together they worked on blocking for the scenes they had of  _What You Will_  or went to all manner of places looking for people who knew the man who was apparently not Raymond Slessinger. Sherlock had initiated or suggested at least half of their interactions outside of the theatre; surely that meant he wanted to spend time with John?

"He asked me to move in with him," he confessed. Will raised a surprised eyebrow. "The second day we actually spent any time with each other." He'd been thinking about it a lot in the past week: how much trouble he would have hiding his burgeoning attraction to the detective if they lived in the same house, how nicely they would bounce off each other as cohabitants, helping each other learn lines for other plays and seeing Sherlock's clients together.

The playwright made an interested noise. "You must have made quite the first impression on him," he commented. John tried an unaffected shrug, but he'd often thought the same thing himself.

Will's smug smile continued in silence for another few moments before John grew sick of it and changed the subject. "Has he seen this?" he asked, waving the final cue-script in the air.

"Not yet," his friend replied, a tiny smile flickering over his face. "I left it with Ed at the Globe, I'll give it to him after  _Dream_ tonight. Do you think he'll like it?"

John almost laughed at the expression on the other man's face. "Given his dissatisfaction with the end of  _Love's Labours,_ I think he may take issue with the abruptness of the ending," he said delicately. A few days previously the detective had treated both of them - and Ben, who had barely left Sherlock's side since they had first rehearsed together - to a rather long speech about how he perfectly understood the professional motivation of  _Love's Labours Lost_  but thought that the ending couldn't stand up on its own merits and therefore wasn't worth the metatheatrical gag. John had a sneaking suspicion he had been caught up by the rumours of a following  _Love's Labours Won_  that had been rife in the months following.

Will chuckled. "Would it make me a horrible person if I said that's a part of why I wrote it like that?" he asked.

"Yes," John insisted, though he joined in the tiny chuckle. "I know Sherlock doesn't come across as particularly personable a lot of the time, but that's no reason to wind him up like that."

The playwright shook his head wryly. "The worst part is, I think he's right," he said, sounding rueful. "I got so irritated that he insisted on calling it  _Twelfth Night_  instead of  _What You Will_  just because he thought it was better, but the more I think about it, the more I actually agree with him.  _What You Will_  is just  _As You Like It_ but with different words. I can't let the audience go into it expecting them to be the same." John nodded thoughtfully. Will sighed resignedly. "Of course, if I change it now, it'll tell him that he's right, and then he'll gloat for days. So I've had to offset the quarto announcement with that final act to distract him. They both went out today - I settled on a dual title.  _Twelfth Night, or What You Will._ "

John snorted. "It won't work," he predicted. "Sherlock doesn't get distracted."

William Shakespeare smiled. "We'll see," he said, tilting his head towards a commotion from the inn's main room. "I wouldn't be surprised if that's him."

There was a  _crash_  from behind the door, and John heard the building's housekeeper attempt a stern reprimand to its creator; then sure enough the door was flying open so hard it bounced off the wall and Sherlock was barging into the room.

Will smiled easily. "Sherlock," he said brightly, sounding quite deliberately as though he wasn't surprised to see him here in such a rage. "Can we help you?"

The detective glared at him and waved a roll of cue-scripts in his face. "This can't be it," he insisted. John pointedly didn't look at its author, holding in his reaction.

"That's it," Will replied calmly. "Is there a problem?"

Sherlock's nostrils flared. "That final scene gives  _one line's_  acknowledgment of Viola's love for Orsino. She doesn't even get to respond to his proposal, assuming that there  _is_  one."

John frowned; he had thought perhaps the response was simply buried in other people's lines and not visible in the cue-script he had been given. He raised an eyebrow. He couldn't say he was surprised: it wasn't the first play in which Will had done that. He seemed to like drawing attention to the lack of input women had into their own marriages, even after an entire play's worth of romantic build-up.

The playwright's smile did not falter. "I know," he said simply. "I wrote it."

"This cue-script has absolutely  _nothing_  of their romance in it," the detective fumed, not pausing in his paces to acknowledge the quip. "Do they end up together at  _all_?"

Will's face was perfectly serene, very explicitly having expected this exact reaction. John couldn't help smiling along with him, although he made an effort to wipe the expression from his face whenever his newest friend directed his frustrated glare at him. "Of course they end up together. I told you they would."

Sherlock rounded on John, eyes gleaming with fury. "What's the line?" he demanded of him. "Where Orsino proposes, what does he say?"

_"Give me thy hand,"_ John quoted simply, " _and let me see you in your women's weeds."_ He'd read over the script when Will proudly handed it to him, and the proposal had been perfunctory enough that he had remembered it.

The detective flapped his hands in irritation. "And Viola only acknowledges the clothing, not the proposal. That's ridiculous."

Will drummed his fingers nonchalantly on the desk. "Sherlock, you're familiar with everything I've ever written," he said, in the manner of one reasoning with a child. "Can you honestly tell me you're surprised?"

Sherlock pouted. Then he flopped into the chair beside John with a gargantuan sigh, clearly defeated. "No," he grumbled. "I only hoped that you would refrain this time."

"I never refrain when it comes to writing," the playwright stated, one eyebrow lifted teasingly. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"I'd noticed," he said dully.

Will cleared his throat briskly, leaning back and folding his hands contentedly over his stomach. "I thought you'd have fun with a little bit of ambiguity," he said, with more amusement than conviction. The detective rather pointedly ignored him. "How did you get hold of the script, anyway?" he changed tack.

Sherlock started slightly, as though the question reminded of something he hadn't thought he could forget. "I was looking for John," he said. "Ed at the Globe told me you were both here, and gave me the script. I read it while I was walking here and it distracted me."

John acknowledged the smug smile that Will sent his way with a tiny shake of his head. "You were looking for me?" he repeated questioningly.

The detective paused for a moment, looking almost shy in the face of the playwright's obvious lack of surprise. "I received a note this morning from Mycroft's office," he said after the moment had passed. "Constable Lestrade has returned from Sussex. I thought you may like to hear what he has to say."

"Of course," John replied eagerly, ignoring Will. Sherlock gave him the tiniest of grateful smiles. "Now?"

A rich noise of assent rumbled out of Sherlock's chest as he launched himself to his feet once more. "Best not to keep the good Constable waiting," he said, his nostrils flaring in amusement. "Excuse us, Master Shakespeare."

Will raised a suggestive eyebrow at John, who rolled his eyes. "Not at all," the playwright said dryly.

Sherlock swept out of the room without a word; John shook his head in mock disgust at his oldest friend's antics before he followed him.

It was almost flattering, though, not only that Will could apparently look at their relationship and see the closeness and the unexpected intimacy that John had wondered whether he was imagining, but that it worried him. He had discovered many years ago that romantic jealousy was far more long-lasting than romantic desire: he didn't want the playwright for his own in that manner anymore, but it still gave him an unpleasant twinge in his belly when his friend displayed want for anyone other than him. To see evidence of the same in the other man was gratifying.

"You said when Mycroft asked you to go that there wouldn't be any major evidence in Sussex," he said, pushing the smug thought to the back of his mind.

The detective frowned, acknowledging the point. "I didn't think there would be," he replied. "But someone will have seen her with Slessinger. Any more information on the people she associated with in Sussex could be useful. And that's information that even Lestrade will have been able to collect."

John nodded. "So where are we meeting him?"

Sherlock scrunched up his face in a grimace. "Mycroft's office," he said, as though each word hurt him. "He has to report to both of us, there's no point in making him do it twice."

He was willing to bet that Sherlock had argued the location with his elder brother and lost; he suppressed a smile. "Right," he replied easily. The detective gave him a warning sort of glare like he knew exactly what John was thinking.

He softened on their walk to Mycroft Holmes' building, and after a few streets of sullen silence he smiled. "I saw the quarto announcement for the Bank theatres this morning," he said smugly. John snorted.

"Of course you did," he said. "Will was trying to distract you with the final scene, but I told him you'd notice anyway."

"Of course I did," Sherlock repeated. "I actually scanned the announcement for  _What You Will_  and then had to read it again when I didn't see it."

John laughed, wondering whether Robert, who put out the quarto announcements, had been there to see Sherlock's double-take. He knew most actors by name and most likely would have laughed to see the detective's reaction to Will Shakespeare's last-minute name change. "I never said it, but I agreed with you," he admitted. "He could probably tell. I don't want people to think it's just  _As You Like It_  rewritten, not when Will tried so hard to make them so different."

Sherlock hummed agreement. "And they are different," he said thoughtfully. "This one is far more sombre. Particularly for Viola. If people come into it expecting the frivolity of  _As You Like It_ they might be disappointed." He paused for a moment while John nodded agreement, then he said, "I like the part of Rosalind, but I think if I'd been offered it I might have turned it down. It needs someone younger."

"So do all female parts, according to most people," John countered. He had thought previously that Rosalind would be the perfect part for his newest friend, with her razor-sharp wit and her delight in being more intelligent than everyone else. He agreed that Rosalind was a very young and naive character despite all of that, though. But then Sherlock seemed young to him sometimes.

Maybe he was just getting old.

Mycroft Holmes raised a disdainful eyebrow at John when they were shown into his office by his sleek assistant; Sherlock gave his brother a hard stare as though daring him to comment. Lestrade, looking uncomfortably out-of-place on a rich settee by the window, simply smiled in greeting at the two of them.

"Brother," Sherlock acknowledged sharply.

"Sherlock," the elder Holmes returned. "Master Watson. Please, have a seat."

John settled uncomfortably on the edge of another settee and wondered at the occupation of a man who had two loungers in his office. Sherlock huffed in apparent irritation and cast himself carelessly into the seat beside John.

The detective allowed his brother and the Constable a few moments to open the conversation, but when they did not, he sat himself up straighter and began it himself. "There have been several developments in the case since you left, Lestrade," he said briskly. "I cannot speak for my brother, but I am primarily interested in the people that Lady Carfax may have been seen speaking to in Sussex."

Lestrade nodded. "Those have been the only things of any real note that I found," he admitted. "The inn's owner said that she and an older couple were the only guests at the time. Apparently Lady Carfax was being harassed by a man who attempted to visit her multiple times, and after a few days the other couple at the inn offered to escort her back to London so that she wouldn't have to run into him on her way home."

Sherlock's frown was heavy. "Describe the man."

Lestrade shifted uncomfortably. "The inkeeper said he was tall," he said hesitantly. "Long-ish dark hair, dark eyes, a tan - she said he was Scottish."

John glanced at Sherlock, who met the look with a tiny knowing smile. "Crocker," he agreed with John's unspoken thoughts. He saw Mycroft shift uncomfortably in the corner of his eye, a frown on his angular face. He probably had no idea what was going on; the idea made John a little more smug than it ought to have.

The Constable frowned in confusion. "The name he gave was Green," he contradicted. "Philip Green."

"I never thought Crocker was his real name," Sherlock dismissed. "I doubt Green is, either. He visited me to ask about Lady Brackenstall, but he denied knowing Lady Carfax. I suspected he was lying: now we have proof." He glanced up at his elder brother distractedly. "You may want to have someone look into him," he suggested. "Since he seemed to want the women found I doubt he's worth my investigating, but I'd be interested to know who he really is." Mycroft simply arched a thin eyebrow, expressing disdain that his younger brother dared to suggest actions to him. Sherlock shrugged carelessly. "What did they say about the nature of Green's interactions with Lady Carfax?"

"One of the inn's employees spotted them arguing on the street while she was off-duty. She was trying to walk away from him and he kept following her trying to speak to her. I spoke to the employee - the only thing she managed to overhear was the Lady's final shout for him to leave her alone. The inkeep said that that evening Lady Carfax stopped him and asked him not to let anyone matching that description into the inn."

Sherlock frowned. "That's a vague description, surely he would risk losing custom from it," he said.

Lestrade shrugged. "She compensated him for it, apparently, but he said that the moment this Green actually came into the inn he could tell that he was the man she meant. Came straight to him and asked which room Lady Carfax was in. He said he didn't look like the type to be violent to her, but he was obviously set on bothering her somehow, so the inkeep threw him out."

There was a pause while Sherlock digested this information. John wondered what anyone could possibly be angry at Lady Carfax about. Perhaps Crocker had been a suitor, as Sherlock had said to the maid: a widow approaching Carfax's age would be expected to leap at any chance of remarrying, no matter how beautiful she was or how lowly her suitor.

"So," the elder Holmes concluded silkily after a moment. "Do you think this Philip Green is responsible for the disappearances?"

Sherlock snorted. "Of course not," he said dismissively, earning himself a reprimanding look from his brother. "He didn't strike me as stupid enough to come and see the man who's investigating a crime he was responsible for. And his concern for Lady Brackenstall was genuine. I'm more worried about the couple that she left with." Lestrade frowned. "I assume you got their name?"

"Slessinger," the Constable replied immediately. "The husband, Raymond, was a religious leader of some description, the inkeep didn't know any more."

John felt his stomach sink. He had hoped that the maid's letters were mistaken somehow, that Lady Carfax had written that she was leaving with them and then changed her mind and not gone. Sherlock nodded factually. "Did you happen to hear a description of him specific enough to detail the state of his left ear?" he asked, a sickly sweet tone to his smooth voice.

Lestrade frowned, looking slightly bewildered. "Jagged or torn," he answered promptly. "Distinctive enough for the innkeep to mention specifically, at any rate."

Mycroft had gone oddly still, eyeing his brother warily. "What are you thinking, Sherlock?" he asked softly.

The detective looked up at him, an expression of great theatrical revelation on his face. " _Holy Peters_ ," he said dramatically.

It had the intended effect, for all its melodrama; Mycroft sat back in his chair with a sharp indrawn breath, looking ruffled. "When was the last time you saw him?" Sherlock pressed.

Mycroft shook his head helplessly. "We dismissed him," he replied, sounding horrified. "One indiscretion too many. Her Majesty wanted to have him executed, but…" he closed his eyes reluctantly. "I persuaded her that he may be useful in the future."

"And now to get back at her – and you, in all probability – he's kidnapped Lady Carfax and at least one other woman," Sherlock said, rather cruelly in John's opinion. The elder Holmes quite clearly understood exactly how much he had messed up, even if John didn't. "We can't know whether the woman posing as his wife was complicit in the kidnapping or not."

It was some consolation to John that Constable Lestrade seemed not to have a clue what was going on either; he caught John's eye and widened his eyes, asking for an explanation. John shrugged.

Sherlock actually stood up, approaching his brother with a calculated mixture of menace and urgency. " _Why_ does Her Majesty care about Lady Frances Carfax?" he demanded.

Mycroft stared him down. "That is not your concern," he maintained. Sherlock let out a great groan of impatience and wheeled away from him.

"I have people out looking for Peters, or Slessinger, as he's currently calling himself," the detective carried on as though he had not just lost a battle of wills with his older brother.

"I will put my own people onto it," Mycroft told him, standing up and brushing non-existent dust from his trousers. "They have methods of contacting him that your street urchins cannot comprehend."

Sherlock gave him a dirty look. "That would be most efficient," he agreed. "Contact me when you have found him."

John shared another bemused glance with Lestrade, who stood himself, apparently recognising the cue to leave. Mycroft turned pointedly to the Constable. "Thank you for your time and assistance in this matter, Constable Lestrade," he said politely.

Lestrade raised an eyebrow, surprised to have been spoken to so sweetly. "It's my job," he said roughly, and John thought that he saw a slight red tint to the man's unshaven cheeks. "Glad I could help."

To John's amusement, the politician smiled at Lestrade. "You certainly did," he reassured him. "I hope you will continue to work with Sherlock on this case."

John was starting to get used to being ignored by the detective's acquaintances. Sherlock, though, gave a huff of irritation. "I can choose my own helpers,  _Mycroft,"_  he spat. "I don't need you to assign me your latest bit of rough."

Lestrade rolled his eyes, apparently used to being treated like this, but Mycroft bristled. "No," he said coolly, with a pointed look at John. "Clearly you are quite capable of finding your own...  _bit of rough._ "

Sherlock actually  _growled_ , taking a threatening step forwards; genuinely worried that he was going to strike his brother, John grabbed his wrist calmingly. His friend halted, glanced at him, then sneered at Mycroft and led him out of the room.

"What in God's name was that?" John asked him once the heavy wooden door had swung closed behind him.

The detective frowned, still looking murderous. "You are not a 'bit of rough'," he said fiercely. "You're my friend."

John raised an eyebrow. "Neither is Lestrade," he rebutted, allowing the taller man to stride off down the hallway. "Technically, you started it."

"Do you think Mycroft cares about any aspect of Lestrade's life or personality? Where he lives, what he likes, what he does in his spare time? The only reason he tolerates him at all is because he likes the way his class represents itself. It's always been his weakness," Sherlock snarled.

John sighed resignedly. "Fine," he said. "Next time we see Lestrade  _I_ will let him know that your brother's intentions might not be completely pure."

Sherlock looked back at Mycroft's closed door, from which Lestrade had not yet emerged, with a heavy frown. "I imagine it'll be too late by  _next time_ ," he said bitterly.

He kept walking, leaving John to wonder why, if his brother's seduction of the Constable bothered him so much, he didn't just walk back into the room and remove Lestrade. He wondered briefly whether he ought to go in there himself, but decided that the Constable could most likely take care of himself.

"Who is he?" John asked instead. "This… Holy Peters? Does he work for Mycroft?"

"He used to," Sherlock corrected. "He was employed to do the Queen's… dirty work. The things Her Majesty wouldn't want to know about. He had a significant hand in the removal of Deveraux after the  _Richard II_ debacle."

John frowned. "So he was like… an assassin," he surmised.

The detective tilted his head to one side as if to say,  _if you like_. "Her Majesty obviously disapproved of him," he added. "Men like that do not come with impeccable manners."

He nodded, understanding. There had been men like that in the army. "And then she dismissed him, like Mycroft said, and he's kidnapped Carfax to try and get back at her," he finished.

Sherlock shrugged. "We can't know exactly what role Carfax plays until we know who she is to the Queen," he said. "But that would certainly be the most obvious reason."

"So now we just have to wait?" he asked, jogging a few steps to catch up with the detective. "For Mycroft's people to find this guy?"

Sherlock hummed absently. "He's right, they'll have more luck than we would. They must have some particular way of contacting him to assign work."

John gave Mycroft's assistant a sheepish smile on their way out; the youth smiled fondly at him in return. Sherlock glowered and slammed the door behind him so hard the wood rattled uncomfortably.

He kept the silence for a few streets until the detective seemed to have cooled off a little, his strides slowing, his eyebrows unknitting themselves. Then he coughed gently. "So what do we do now?" he asked, carefully phrasing it as read that the two of them would remain together. They had to perform  _Dream_  together in a few hours, after all, and he didn't want Sherlock in this foul a mood when they arrived there.

His friend hesitated for a moment. Then, to John's relief, he smiled. " _As You Like It?"_ he suggested brightly.

* * *

  


" _Do you hear, forester?"_ Sherlock called out, ducking out from behind the door where he had concealed himself with his cue-script as soon as they had reached Angelo's inn. John affected a jump at his sudden appearance.

_"Very well,"_ he answered when he had recovered, " _what would you?"_

Sherlock waved an airy hand in dismissal, as though he had absolutely no desire to speak to John, but something seemed to vibrate underneath his skin, lighting up his eyes with a subtle kind of anticipation. " _I pray you, what is't o'clock?"_ he asked like it was nothing.

John smiled wryly. " _You should ask me what time o'day,"_ he replied, putting on a smug air as though he thought himself witty.  _"There is no clock in the forest."_

_"Then there is no true lover in the forest,"_ Sherlock rebutted quickly, " _else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock."_

Slightly baffled, John frowned at the statement. " _And why not the swift foot of time?"_ he asked after a moment, Orlando apparently finding nothing else to comment on.  _"Had not that been as proper?"_

Sherlock smirked.  _"By no means, sir:_ " he amended, leaning idly against the room's writing desk.  _"Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal."_

John smiled, taking the bait.  _"I prithee, who doth he trot withal?"_ he asked, folding his arms in interest.

The detective pushed off the desk and began a steady pace in circles around John, his eyes dancing.  _"Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnised,"_ he began, smirking at his own wit.  _"If the interim be but a se'ennight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year."_

He'd thought when he'd first seen it played that Rosalind was written with rather admirable wit, particularly in her teasing of Orlando. He smiled indulgently at Sherlock, enjoying the similarities he'd reflected on before.  _"Who ambles Time withal?_ " he prompted.

_"With a priest who lacks Latin and a rich man who hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury,_ " Sherlock explained, still strutting a circle around him.

He raised an impressed eyebrow.  _"Who doth he gallop withal?"_

Lightning fast, Sherlock replied, " _With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there."_

John followed Sherlock's pacing with his head, turning on the spot to keep him in vision. He hesitated for a long moment before asking,  _"Who stays it still withal?",_  getting the distinct impression that Rosalind enjoyed having Orlando so hooked on his words that he would ask for more.

_"With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves,"_ the detective finished smugly. John smiled, conceding the aptness of the other man's wit by unfolding his arms and resettling his stance in an impressed kind of manner.

_"Where dwell you, pretty youth?"_ he asked, affecting intrigue.

Sherlock's smirk widened.  _"With this shepherdess, my sister:"_  he replied, sweeping a hand to the side to indicate someone who was not there.  _"Here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat."_

John let himself frown a little, tilting his head to one side like Ganymede was one of Sherlock's puzzles he actually had a chance to figure out. " _Are you native of this place?"_ he asked.

_"As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled,_ " Sherlock replied innocently.

Trapping the younger man, John moved forwards, physically caging him against the desk.  _"Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling,"_ he challenged.

Sherlock froze for a moment as though Orlando had caught him out, but then he slid his back across the desk with a polite smile and jumped back into his fluid, active speech.  _"I have been told so of many,"_  he excused.  _"But indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal."_

Sherlock's Ganymede seemed to speak with his entire body, pacing and gesticulating in a smugly animated sort of way, buoyant with his own wit. John smiled in amusement that was not entirely fake.  _"Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?"_

_"There were none principal,"_  the detective dismissed airily.  _"They were all like one another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it."_

_"I prithee, recount some of them,"_ John begged him.

Sherlock spun away from him as though John had reached out to catch him.  _"No_ ," he teased, grinning wickedly. " _I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him."_

John took an eager step towards his friend.  _"I am he that is so love-shaked,"_  he said, injecting desperation into the words.  _"I pray you, tell me your remedy."_

The detective narrowed his eyes critically, not stepping away from John's advance. " _There is none of my uncle's marks on you,"_ he denounced.  _"He taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner."_

_"What were his marks?"_ John asked.

Sherlock stepped right in close, until John could feel his measured breath on his face, and looked him up and down.  _"A lean cheek, which you have not,"_ he began, cupping John's jaw like he was about to lean in for a kiss. John began to restrain himself from leaning into the hand, then covered the motion as Orlando's intrigue instead.  _"A blue eye and sunken, which you have not,_ " Sherlock continued, lifting his hand to stroke the skin beside John's eye, which he closed to enjoy the contact.  _"A beard neglected, which you have not - but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue."_  The detective chucked John's chin cheerfully; John pulled away from the tease with an affronted frown. Sherlock chuckled. " _Then your hose should be ungartered, your shoe untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation,"_ Sherlock finished, gesturing to each item of clothing as it was mentioned and then standing back with arms folded. _"But you are no such man: you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other."_

John couldn't help but be insulted at the knowing glance that his friend bestowed upon him, accompanied as it was by Sherlock's amused little smirk.  _"Fair youth,_ " he said, almost reverentially,  _"I wish I could make thee believe I love."_

_"Me believe it!"_ Sherlock snorted, stepping away from him with a disbelieving gesture.  _"You may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in which women still give the lie to their consciences."_

John frowned slightly at Ganymede's constant disparagement of women, coming as they did from a woman in disguise. He'd always been slightly uneasy at the tactic that Rosalind chose to woo Orlando, by rather violently warning him away from love and women. Sherlock watched him for a moment as though expecting him to reply: John glanced down at the cue-script, but there were no lines. After an expectant moment, the detective drew breath and stepped softly closer.  _"But, in good sooth,"_ he said seriously, almost tenderly, " _are you he that hangs the verses on the trees wherein Rosalind is so admired?"_

He left one hand outstretched inquisitively, so John took it and pressed it to his heart. Sherlock's eyes widened comically.  _"I swear to thee, youth,"_ John promised, leaning in close as though it was the witty forest-dweller for whom he was proclaiming his love, not some absent woman.  _"By the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he."_

Intrigued, Sherlock leaned ever closer, closer than was comfortable. John was awkwardly torn between the desire to move closer and that to break away.  _"But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?"_ the younger man breathed, apparently entranced.

_"Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much,"_ John murmured. He leaned forward the tiniest increment further, misjudged the distance slightly and accidentally bumped his parted lips against Sherlock's.

Both of them recoiled slightly with sharp intakes of breath. Sherlock stared at him with an expression like John had just pulled something out from underneath his feet, breathing quickly, their faces a handspan apart.

Then he cleared his throat and spun away, delivering Rosalind's next line far louder than was necessary, his voice oddly strangled. " _Love is merely a madness,"_ he dismissed,  _"and I tell you, deserves as well a dark-house and whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too."_ He took a deep breath as though calming himself down, then straightened defiantly.  _"Yet I profess curing it by counsel."_

_"Did you ever cure any so?"_ John asked sceptically.

_"Yes, one, and in this manner:"_ Sherlock defended, returning to his pacing and wild gestures. " _He was to imagine me his love, his mistress: and I set him every day to woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour."_ The detective stopped for breath, not having taken one during the entire sentence, his long-fingered hands darting every which way to reflect the hotchpotch of emotions his speech described. John raised an eyebrow. Sherlock darted forwards and grabbed John's hands, clearly caught in the passion of his speech.  _"Would now like him, now loathe him,"_ he continued, pushing away from John on the contrasting emotion, repeating his back-and-forth as the convention repeated itself. He seemed at once to be performing for John and barely aware of his presence. " _Then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic."_ Again Sherlock paused to breathe, his hands triumphantly coming to rest on his hips.  _"And thus I cured him; and this way will I take it upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't."_

John slowly let the smile at his friend's impassioned delivery fade from his face. " _I would not be cured, youth,"_ he said simply after the pause had hung between them.

Sherlock, too, paused, his breathing gently slowing.  _"I would cure you,"_ he assured him, stepping forward once more, at once soft and earnest.  _"If you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote and woo me."_

For a moment, John hesitated. Then he nodded sharply.  _"Now by the faith of my love, I will;"_ he agreed.  _"Tell me where it is."_

" _Go with me to it and I'll show it you,"_ Sherlock offered, stretching out a hand in the direction that presumably led to Ganymede's cottage.  _"And by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?"_

John smiled.  _"With all my heart, good youth."_

The detective smiled, suddenly bright and brilliant.  _"Nay,"_ he corrected, putting a languid and authoritative arm around John's shoulders,  _"but you must call me Rosalind."_

They walked in this manner - Sherlock's arm draped casually over John's shoulders, a warm presence against the nape of his neck - back to the room's desk before the detective dropped the contact with a chuckle. "I quite like aspects of that play," he said playfully, perching himself on the edge of the desk. "That scene in particular. I like the power that Shakespeare gives Rosalind, and the way that she chooses to use it to woo Orlando and set the tone for their entire relationship."

John hummed agreement, hoisting himself onto the desk beside Sherlock. "My favourite part of that scene is probably the fact that Celia is on-stage for the entire conversation between Orlando and Ganymede and doesn't have a single line," he commented. "I remember thinking it was a mistake the first time I read over the script submission, but Will assured me it was intentional."

"It displays Celia's jealousy over Orlando to great effect," Sherlock said thoughtfully. "And has the potential to highlight the fact that she could have had the same chance with him if Rosalind hadn't been quicker. Like  _Dream_ \- Hermia and Helena are so similar that the only reason Demetrius loves Hermia is because he saw her after he had grown used to Helena. Perhaps we should ask Molly to join us, it would certainly be a valuable exercise for him."

Sherlock's assertion that Celia's frustration throughout the play was due to her longing for Orlando gave John pause; he frowned at his friend. "I've always thought Celia was in love with Rosalind," he suggested. "That she was jealous of the attention that her best friend was suddenly paying to someone else."

He thought back suddenly to Will's cautions about spending too much time with Sherlock and suppressed a tiny smile. The detective assumed a thoughtful expression. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted.

John smiled thinly. "No-one ever does," he remarked. "I've always thought it interesting that people jump to conclusions about men spending too much time together, but don't even consider that women might do the same things."

Sherlock gave John one of his calculating looks. "Your sister," he deduced, not even bothering to frame it like a question.

"She's lived with her lover for two years now and never once has anyone made any salacious comments about the two of them," John confirmed. "Everyone assumes they're just two spinsters saving money by sharing a house." Harry's relationship with Clara had always been a sore point for John. It didn't help that he couldn't really complain about it: lack of scrutiny of her romantic relationship was really the only social advantage she had over him.

The detective smiled ruefully. "Well," he said, looking like he was winding himself up for some kind of detailed observation, but his eyes lit on the doorway and he stopped. "Billy," he said, surprised. John snapped his head around to the door; sure enough, the small boy Sherlock had been using as an informant was standing in the doorway, leaning unobtrusively against the frame as though he had been hoping not to be noticed. "How long have you been there?"

John wasn't sure what to make of the fact that  _Sherlock Holmes_  hadn't noticed him until now. The boy shrugged carefully. "I only just got here, Master Holmes," he said innocently, dropping consonants seemingly at random from his words. "Angelo said I should just come up."

"Very well," Sherlock said, pursing his lips. It was obvious that not having noticed the boy had irritated him. "Is it the jewellery?"

"A shop in Moregate, Master Holmes," Billy told him, standing up as though anticipating being knocked over by the detective's enthusiasm. "One of the pieces you described, in a packet with some others."

Sherlock nodded sharply. "Some of Lady Carfax's jewellery, no doubt," he said, vaulting off the desk and lifting his coat from the hanger beside the door in one smooth movement. "Take us there now," he ordered the child.

Billy did not react to the command, merely watching as the detective extended a hand to help John from the desk. John stared at it for a moment: he didn't need Sherlock's help getting up, and the other man surely knew that. After the moment had passed, John took the hand softly and pulled himself off the desk with it. "Thanks," he said softly. Sherlock smiled tentatively.

The boy in the doorway cleared his throat, looking bored. Sherlock looked away abruptly. "Right," the detective said briskly, turning away and folding his arms into his coat in a practiced move. "Let's go. Moregate isn't that far from here."

He didn't speak to John the entire walk to the jeweller, instead shooting him furtive glances with his eyebrows drawn tightly together, as though deeply unsure how to react. John wasn't sure how to take this: taking his hand at the inn had been a deliberate action, like he'd made some kind of decision. But a decision to what? To engage with John, and accept the physical intimacy of close friendship? Or something more? Was he reading it correctly, or had the gesture really meant nothing?

Whatever the decision, he appeared to be having second thoughts. John tried to smile reassuringly at him every time the worried look was directed his way, but it was difficult to time the glances correctly and not look as though he was trying too hard.

Eventually Billy stopped them in front of a rather auspicious jeweller's shop. Sherlock glanced up at the sign above the door. "A little fancier than I'd expected," he commented. Billy raised a bored eyebrow. "Wait here," the detective commanded him.

John watched as his friend straightened his shoulders and shook out his sleeves with a sharp blowing-out of his cheeks: John recognised the ritual as a muted version of what the other man did to prepare himself for the stage. Then he sighed. "Come on, John," Sherlock barked quickly, pushing open the door with an extravagant movement and striding boldly in.

"Excuse me," he said brightly to the balding man behind the counter, a false smile stretched across his face. "I'm here on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. I believe some of the jewellery you were sold this morning is stolen property."

The jeweller didn't look as surprised as John would have expected; he nodded with a slight bow in their direction. "Of course, sir," he said in a soft voice. "If you could describe the particular pieces you are referring to?"

Sherlock smiled amiably and reached into his coat pocket for the butler's drawings. "They would have been among other jewels," he said as he unfolded them. "Dropped off by a child, apparently."

Again, the man did not look surprised, like he had expected the news. "Yes," he said slowly, reaching below the counter for a folded piece of cloth. "I thought the Government may be interested in those."

The detective narrowed his eyes. "Why would you think that?" he asked.

A guarded look crept across the shop owner's face, as though he had said more than he ought to have. Sherlock's eyebrows drew together, perking up immediately. "A child handed the items in," he dismissed, though even John could tell that this was not the real reason. "It seemed an interesting method for legitimate delivery of such rich jewellery."

Sherlock nodded, though a spark in his pale eyes told John he had not given up on the matter. "Here are the pieces we have been notified of," he said, smoothing down the butler's pictures. "I was informed they were among those handed in by the child this morning. The other pieces are also likely to have been stolen, but I will attempt to get a description from the woman I suspect will know for certain."

"Yes," the jeweller confirmed, carefully sorting the pieces from his fabric without allowing either of them to see what else was in it. "Here they are. I will need your name, sir, in case anyone else asks for them."

"Sherlock Holmes and John Watson," the detective provided easily. "We are currently representing Constable Lestrade."

The jeweller nodded, apparently satisfied, and pushed the pile of emerald jewellery across the counter. Sherlock wrapped them carefully in a handkerchief and stowed them in his pocket. "Thank you," John said for him.

They turned as if to leave, John taking Sherlock's lead and making the move as slow as possible. Sure enough, once they were facing the other direction the man cleared his throat timidly. "What part of Her Majesty's Government did you say you were working for, Master Holmes?" he asked.

Sherlock smiled. "We were directly employed - as was Constable Lestrade - by one of Her Majesty's own advisors," he said sleekly.

The jeweller looked relieved. "There was another piece in the package that will interest you," he admitted, reaching below the counter once more. "I would have reported it as soon as I recognised it, but I wasn't sure who to report it to."

"You may report it to us," Sherlock told him, crossing back to the counter with a barely-suppressed expression of glee. "We will ensure the relevant authority is alerted to its whereabouts."

The man nodded again, unwrapping a small, jewel-encrusted ring and passing it with the utmost care to the detective. Sherlock brought it close to his eyes, looking intrigued.

"You recognise the piece?" the jeweller asked, his eyes narrow as he watched Sherlock scrutinising it.

John, too, watched the frown lines deepen on the detective's forehead. "I do," he said, turning his frown on the man behind the counter. "You cannot sell it, of course."

The man snorted. "Of course," he confirmed. "Or I would not be showing you that I have it."

"What is it?" John asked, completely nonplussed. "It looks familiar."

Sherlock looked at him blankly. "It's a ring," he explained, rather obviously in John's opinion. "Ruby and diamond, embellished with the letter  _E_ over the letter  _R_." When John didn't show any signs of recognition beyond the fact that Sherlock had just described what was already in front of him, he rolled his eyes. " _Elizabeth Regina_ ," he expanded. "It belongs to the Queen."

John felt his eyebrows rise so high they almost hurt. He supposed this helped them understand why the Queen was interested in Lady Carfax, if it  _had_  come from her - but how on Earth would she have got her hands on the Queen's jewellery?

"There is something else," the jeweller said, carefully taking the ring from Sherlock and turning it over in his hands. "This piece is quite remarkable, I have never seen anything quite like it."

He deftly pressed some sort of catch, and the diamond letter  _E_  flipped open to reveal tiny twin portraits. Sherlock breathed in sharply. "It's a locket," the jeweller explained. "The top portrait is clearly Her Majesty, and the bottom -"

John bent closer. "But that looks like -"

Sherlock kicked him under the counter, and John shut up quickly. "I believe it is, yes," the jeweller said proudly. "Anne Boleyn. She was Her Majesty's mother, after all, despite her execution."

A glance at Sherlock told him not to say anything; the detective was nodding and smiling at the jeweller as though he agreed entirely. "Well," he said, his voice slightly too high-pitched and genial. "I can see to it that Her Majesty knows the ring is here, and that you are rewarded for holding it safely."

"Of course," the jeweller said, nodding importantly. "It will be given the utmost protection until Her Majesty's emissary retrieves it for her. Jesu knows how it came to be in the hands of the boy who tried to sell it to me."

Sherlock glanced at John, one side of his mouth quirking up. "I'm certain he does," he said solemnly. "Well, John, we had best let Mycroft know we have recovered it."

They nodded to the jeweller and swept out of the shop. As soon as they were out of sight of the shop windows, Sherlock stopped dead and let out a rich, elated chuckle.

"That wasn't Anne Boleyn in the locket," John pointed out, grinning along with him.

Sherlock's chuckle broke into a full-throated laugh of triumph. "No," he agreed. "No, it wasn't. It was Frances Carfax."

"But that means -"

"Yes," the detective cut him off, eyes dancing. "So much for our Virgin Queen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Notes** : Yes, the locket-ring is a real thing. It's speculated – but not confirmed – that the bottom portrait is in fact Anne Boleyn.
> 
> John's comment about liking the fact that Celia is silent on stage for the whole scene comes from my own experience: playing Celia in that scene is possibly the most fun I've ever had performing Shakespeare.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry this has been so long, especially given how I left the last one - I have moved from New Zealand to England and am now living in the town founded on the edge of the Forest of Arden (where As You Like It is set) and twenty minutes from Shakespeare's birth town. So while lots of exciting personal stuff has been going on, you can be darn sure this story has never been far from my mind and a fair amount of this chapter was actually written in a café out the back of the house the Great Man himself was born in. Some of the next chapter was written on the bank of the Thames outside the reconstructed Globe, some more in the upstairs bedroom at 221B Baker Street (the attendants there are lovely and let me stay in there with my notebook for hours). I've been incredibly lucky to have so much Shakespeare and Holmes in my life lately; now it's time for me to start giving back to them.
> 
> Also: sex next chapter. Promise. And the ol' muse is quite strong at the moment, so hopefully it won't be nearly as long.

_"So much for our Virgin Queen."_

John couldn't help but grin at the detective's obvious relish at the discovery, despite the fact that merely days ago his friend had insisted that he didn't pay attention to gossip and scandal. He supposed it was different when you uncovered the scandal yourself.

"Elizabeth Tudor's illegitimate daughter," John summarised, just checking he had, in fact, drawn the correct conclusion. Sherlock chuckled again. "Well, that explains why Her Majesty is trying so hard to find her."

"It certainly does," the detective agreed. "Billy!"

The boy pushed away from the shop wall where he had been nonchalantly leaning, raising an insouciant eyebrow. It struck John that since Sherlock seemed to be the boy's primary source of income, he never seemed particularly interested in what he did for his money. "Did you  _see_  the boy who handed the jewellery in?" Sherlock asked him.

Billy scratched his neck idly. "Oh, yeah," he said, like he had simply forgotten to mention it. "Few years older than me. Floppy sort of hair. Dark. Looked a bit pathetic, shaking a little. Think I'd seen him somewhere before, but I can't place him."

Sherlock sighed in irritation. "Try  _harder,_ Billy," he pressed. "On the streets, perhaps?"

"Nah, it wasn't that," the boy deferred. "Something to do with you." He hummed theatrically, tipping his head from side to side in a caricature of thought. Sherlock sighed again and drew a coin from his pocket, holding it up so that it caught the weak Moregate sunlight. The boy's eyes lit up. "Oh! I remember," he smirked. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "He was from that theatre you work at. When you used to go watch Watson over there. Always tripping over in his dress."

John looked at his friend in surprise. " _Tobias?_ "

"Who else could that be?" the detective agreed, but he sounded surprised. "You're sure?" he asked Billy.

"Positive," the boy maintained. Sherlock flicked the coin at him with his thumb and made a shooing motion. "Thank you, Mister Holmes," Billy said smoothly, bowing slightly.

Sherlock grimaced. "Keep an eye out for him," he ordered briskly. "And don't stop watching the jewellery stores, there are still some pieces missing."

With only the tiniest nod of acknowledgement, Billy turned on his heel and strolled away into an alleyway between two shops.

For a long moment, Sherlock watched him go, breathing slowly. Then he nodded, as though deciding something. "Right," he said softly.

"How on Earth did Tobias get mixed up in this?" John asked, not really expecting a reply. How could Sherlock know?

Sure enough, the detective shook his head slowly. "Did he say anything about new people coming into his life?  _Anything_  at all that could tell us how he got involved?"

John shrugged. "No," he said helplessly. "I didn't know much about him, really. He was fine, and then one day he wasn't, and he wouldn't talk to me about it. Then the next day he was gone."

Sherlock hummed thoughtfully. "It could be nothing more than they spotted him on the street and convinced him to go in there and hand in the jewellery," he mused. "Or it could be more complicated than that. We have no way of telling."

He turned his back on the jewellery shop and started back the way they had come, walking slowly with his head pensively bowed. John watched him for a moment before starting after him. "Still though," he tried, "this helps us, doesn't it? It  _must_  be why Peters is after her."

Sherlock frowned. "It tells us part of the why," he agreed, "but it doesn't exactly narrow down the  _whom_  as much as I hoped it would."

"How do you mean? Didn't we already agree that it was this... Holy Peters person?"

"I'm certain that Peters is posing as Raymond Slessinger," Sherlock agreed, "but he's a mercenary. No matter what I said to Mycroft, he wouldn't kidnap two women just to get back at someone who fired him. He must be being paid by someone. And this latest discovery almost  _widens_  the field of whom that may be, rather than narrowing it."

The detective paused for a moment, as though to allow John to catch up. John made a gesture for him to carry on.

"She's Elizabeth's daughter," he continued, his deep voice tinged with impatience. "That means that she could be next in line for the throne. Her Majesty is ill, which means there's a very real chance she might soon become Queen. Everyone who has a shot at the throne will want her out of the way, along with every enemy Elizabeth currently has. And even Mycroft just doesn't  _know_  who at least half of those are."

John frowned, trying to follow the chain of reasoning. It seemed impossible that such a huge revelation could mean so little for them. "So Mycroft was right," he concluded. "The Queen's interest in Carfax isn't really relevant to her disappearance."

Sherlock shook his head slowly. "There are a number of ways in which this might influence the case," he disagreed. "Perhaps Her Majesty attempted to contact Lady Carfax when she fell ill, and that's why Carfax went to Sussex in the first place - trying to avoid the royal summons. We'll have to look at the people who were most likely to have known about it. Or where potential leaks could have come from."

"Isn't that more Mycroft's area, though?" John reasoned. "I mean, he's actually  _in_ these circles, isn't he, so isn't he better placed to know who might be leaking the information?"

The detective shrugged. "Most likely," he agreed. "But that's Mycroft, he never does his own legwork. He almost always has some kind of theory when he calls me, and what he really wants is to see me actually do the running around following the actual evidence to  _prove_  his existing theory. So when I come to him with the solution he always comes back with "yes, I thought so"."

He could so easily picture his friend's aloof older brother saying this that he snorted. Mycroft would probably say that even if Sherlock's research pointed towards someone he hadn't suspected at all. "That's a bit rotten," he said anyway, trying not to smile at the petulant look on Sherlock's face. "He could at least thank you for all the work you did for him."

It was Sherlock's turn to snort. "That's Mycroft again," he said, like it didn't bother him. "No-one ever does anything worthwhile or commendable but him. And now possibly Lestrade," he added as an afterthought. John frowned at the suggestion. No wonder people didn't want to rely on the Justices of the Peace and turned to Sherlock instead, if the people behind the Justice system were all as lazy and self-serving as Mycroft.

"Do you think Lestrade knows about Lady Carfax?" he asked.

The detective's eyes narrowed. "I doubt it," he said, but he didn't sound entirely certain. "It would be a little self-defeating to keep it from us and then tell the Constable we've been working with."

John nodded. "I suppose we ought to go and tell Mycroft that we've worked it out, so he can go get the ring? Maybe he'll be more forthcoming now we know the big secret."

To his surprise, Sherlock shook his head slowly with a discontented hum. "I'm not sure that we should let on that we know, actually," he said quietly. "There's a possibility that it's Mycroft's people who are after her. And that's why he's more interested in simply  _finding_ her, and not showing a lot of interest in why she's missing."

It took a moment for John to process the fact that Sherlock actually believed that his brother would use him like that. He and his sister didn't  _like_ each other, but he'd always known that if it was something serious, she'd be on his side. He couldn't imagine how vulnerable he would feel - would  _have felt_  growing up, even more so, if he didn't have that knowledge. "So we shouldn't tell Lestrade either?" he asked, suddenly feeling rather exposed. He'd quite liked the Constable. Was it wrong to trust  _anyone_  in Sherlock's surreal, theatrical world?

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, considering the question. "I think we need to tell him everything but the ring," he decided after a moment. "Tell him some of the jewellery was handed in, by Anderson, and what Billy is going to do to find the rest. Don't mention the Queen's ring and what it implies. At least for a few days." John nodded, but he must still have looked shaken, because the detective smiled at him. "It's probably not Mycroft," he said in a placating manner. "But in the very small chance that the Queen's office is the reason Carfax went missing, if Mycroft knows we know about her then he has a chance to change the rest of the board, erase any evidence that might point to him. If we don't tell him for a few days, we might have a head start."

John thought about it. "But if it's not him, then we lose his inside knowledge of Her Majesty's inner circle until we decide to let him know."

Sherlock shrugged unconcernedly. "I have other friends, other people in the Government who owe me a few favours, and I know enough myself to build a good enough picture. The only thing Mycroft could give me that I couldn't get myself is his theories, and even if he'd give them to me I've already explained to you how dangerous theories are if you rely on them instead of the data."

John had no desire to get back into that discussion given where it had taken them last time. "Okay," he said instead. "So - we tell Lestrade we found some of the jewellery. Then what?"

His friend shrugged. "I'll need to go back to Angelo's," he said simply. "The net of this case just widened considerably, it's no longer sensible to keep it all in my head. I need visual stimuli. I'll have to use pen and paper to lay everything out in front of me."

It sounded like a rather solitary job, so John simply nodded and swallowed his disappointment. Sherlock gave him an odd look out of the corner of his eye. "It won't be nearly as exciting as this last part, but I would be glad of your company if you would like to join me."

John smiled. He couldn't help but be flattered when Sherlock wanted him around to watch him do simple things that he could just as easily do on his own. "All right," he accepted with a grin. "So Lestrade first, then Angelo's?"

"I think that would be best," Sherlock agreed, beaming back. "You may remember from our first meeting that they're quite close."

It had been dark when they had dragged the unconscious thief back to the Constable's residence, and John had to admit he had no idea where that had been relative to anything else. He let the detective lead him down another side-street, the silence companionable, like each of them were smiling quietly to themselves in contentment. John let his thoughts turn to Will again, the way he seemed torn between pushing John and Sherlock together and trying to keep them apart.

_"_ We can't really rehearse that final scene by ourselves, can we?" John asked pensively after a while. "There are so many people in it there isn't a long enough string of dialogue to practice."

Sherlock shook his head, his expression slightly shaken, like he was coming back to the present from far away. "Besides, I almost think that the more confused and unrehearsed it looks, the better," he agreed. "It's the culmination of a whole lot of misunderstanding, no-one in the scene is supposed to know what's going on. I think that's one scene that we can leave until Shakespeare sees it."

They walked in silence for a moment while John contemplated the dead end that line of conversation had led him into. The detective snorted. "There's a whole lot more  _As You Like It_  we could try out, though," he rescued. "And possibly a few other dynamics -  _Much Ado,_ for example, just to play around with different ways Orsino and Viola could interact with each other. It's like Shakespeare said earlier, it's a rather loose script in terms of these two characters, it works through its own ambiguity. There are lots of different choices we could make, and I think the best way to do it is to try them all - find different parts of other plays and then read the scenes from  _Twelfth Night_  with the same kind of dynamic."

John nodded, far calmer than he felt. It probably ought to concern him how elated he felt at the prospect - at  _Sherlock's suggestion_ \- of days spent re-running the same two short scenes in different manners of relating to the other man. He had a flash of understanding about Will's concerns: John was happy when he was with Sherlock, but he had no real idea what the other side of that could look like. What if the playwright was right, and his new friend grew bored with him and left? Surely John, plain and military John, couldn't keep him entertained forever. "I think that's the best way to do it," he said reasonably. "Maybe find two or three different ways that we like and show them to Will, see what he thinks. And what works with what Molly thinks, perhaps."

"We ought to rehearse with the three of us - I know Orsino and Olivia don't have scenes together, but it's important for you to see what Molly and I are doing, and for Molly to see what you and I are doing," Sherlock added.

John was less committed to this idea, but he hummed agreement anyway. He supposed it was lucky that Olivia was a point of jealousy between Orsino and Viola; he could even use the ugly mess of emotions that he felt every time he thought of the younger boy in terms of his relationship with Sherlock, instead of trying to suppress them and act professionally. It seemed to work surprisingly well with  _Dream_  as well: this production emphasised the role of Puck as a mediator between Titania and Oberon, but somehow in their subsequent performances he had turned into the cause of their jealous argument in the first place. He wasn't sure how it had begun, but with each afternoon's reading Sherlock had pushed Ben onto him like he was egging John on, and the young actor had lapped up the attention, growing more clingy and flirtatious, and John hadn't been able to do anything except step up his own possessiveness and twisted, confused jealousy. He wasn't sure from night to night whether he was jealous of Puck for spending time with his wife or of Titania for trying to corrupt his manservant; wasn't sure how much of his jealousy was friendly or sexual.

Oddly, the same dynamic could be applied to Orsino's perspective of Cesario's interactions with Olivia: whatever the cause of the jealousy, he couldn't help but be impressed with the speed with which the servant he had become so fond of was wooing his intended, couldn't be sure whether it was jealousy of someone else seducing his lady-love or of a woman winning the affections of the boy he liked so much. And if it  _was_  jealousy of Olivia for how quickly she had won over Cesario, was that platonic jealousy, because he had tried so hard to be a good lord to the boy, or something darker?

He suddenly wondered whether the parallel was coincidence at all, or whether Will had been aiming for this all along, playing with the emotions he naturally knew that John had, because William Shakespeare never missed the tiniest beat of human emotion.

The detective cleared his throat gently, snapping John out of his increasingly suspicious train of thought. "Sounds good," he said, hearing the hollow quality in his voice and faking a bright smile to compensate for it. Sherlock, unsurprisingly, caught it anyway and frowned, his lips twitching convulsively. John swallowed awkwardly; he knew that he should acknowledge somehow that Ben was an uncomfortable topic between them to make it less awkward, but how could he do that without giving away exactly  _why_ he was uncomfortable talking about Molly with Sherlock, something that - unbelievably - the other man seemed not to have guessed yet?

And then the moment where he could have said something had passed, and they walked in an uncomfortable silence the rest of the way to the street where John vaguely remembered dragging someone unconscious in the middle of the night so long ago.

It was Donovan who opened the door to the Constable's residence, looking just as enthusiastic to see them as ever. Sherlock faked a bright smile that she did not attempt to return. "What are you doing here?" she asked rudely, making it as clear as she could that they were not welcome.

"Clearly, we're here to see Lestrade," Sherlock drawled unconcernedly, sidestepping her to enter the low building. "New evidence has come to light regarding the Brackenstall affair."

Donovan glared at John as though his best friend's manners were his fault, but followed the detective with a huff of irritation. "What, in the three hours since you last saw him?" she asked incredulously.

John almost started in surprise. Had it been only three hours since they had been in Mycroft's office? With their playing and the revelation of the jewellery, John could have sworn an entire day had passed. It was so easy to lose track of time when he was performing, especially when it was alongside Sherlock.

Lestrade sat at a rickety wooden desk, surrounded by sheaves of parchment, rough sketches and untidy handwriting. John spotted the portrait of Lady Carfax that Mycroft had given him perched atop a stack of what looked like his own notes. John couldn't help but raise an eyebrow; he hadn't realised the Constable could read. At Sherlock's entrance he sighed and tossed aside a sketch of a rather sharp face with a beard. "Sherlock," he said resignedly. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Donovan snorted. Sherlock gave a thin-lipped smile, which actually made Lestrade looked intrigued; apparently John wasn't the only one who was attuned to the detective's rare good humour.

Sherlock sat down with a dramatic _flump_  on the lone armchair, leaving John to look around in vain for another place to sit before perching on the edge of one arm, carefully avoiding his friend's long-fingered hand. "A portion of Lady Brackenstall's jewellery has been recovered," he pronounced, taking the packet from an inside pocket of his coat. "I am simply handing it in to the appropriate authority."

A hopeful smile worked its way onto the Constable's worn face. He stood and crossed the room to retrieve the package, holding the items up to the grubby window as though to check that they were genuine. "This one isn't the Brackenstalls'," he observed, waving a small ruby pendant at the detective.

"No," Sherlock agreed. "I believe the remainder of the jewellery belonged to Lady Carfax, confirming my suspicion that they were kidnapped by the same person. I intend to have her maid, Miss Devine, verify the ownership of the items."

Lestrade nodded, still turning the pendant over in his fingertips. "How did you find them?" he asked, returning to the desk and stowing the packet carefully in a drawer. Sherlock's fingers twitched.

"They were handed into a store in Moregate," he answered after a rather deep breath. "One of my homeless network recognised the emerald necklace. And, incidentally, the messenger."

Donovan shifted in the doorway. "He recognised the person who handed it in?" she interpreted. Sherlock arched a cool eyebrow. "Who was it?"

For a moment - the precise length of pause that John, too, had been taught to leave to create dramatic tension - the detective didn't answer. Then he leaned forwards in his chair, the shoulder of his black greatcoat brushing against John's hip. "It was a fourteen year-old boy named Tobias Anderson," he said heavily. "A boy who went missing two weeks ago, the very boy, in fact, whom I replaced in the current production of  _A Midsummer Night's Dream."_

Donovan made an odd noise. "I heard about him," she said, looking at Lestrade. "They took the case to us when you were in Sussex and I turned it away because I thought we had too much to be getting on with with these disappearances."

Sherlock sighed, but Lestrade gave him a warning look. "You weren't to know," he told his assistant. "I'll go back to his Lordship and request any details."

"They may not even be connected," John interjected before Sherlock could say something scathing. "They might have just found Tobias on the street and given him sixpence or something to hand in the jewellery."

" _Or_ they could be intrinsically linked and the connection between them could be the key to the entire case," Sherlock rejoined, throwing John a slightly betrayed glare. "Or neither. We can't take the chance."

The Constable rolled his eyes. "I said I'd take the case," he reiterated. "John, I'll need to speak to you about it. Without Sherlock present. You knew this Anderson, you spoke to him before he disappeared."

John nodded. "I'll give you his mother's address, too," he said. "Though it sounded like she knew even less than we did."

Sherlock looked as though he didn't know whether to be satisfied or disgruntled with this outcome. He stood abruptly. "Well," he said, brushing non-existent dust from his lapels. "We know Peters and his hostages are back in London at any rate. With both mine and Mycroft's people out looking for him, it'll only be a matter of time before we find them."

"Hopefully before it's too late," Lestrade agreed.

The detective gave a sharp nod. "John, you can find your way back to Angelo's, can't you?"

He wasn't entirely sure that he could, but John nodded anyway. "I won't be long," he assured his friend, wondering whether Sherlock would even notice his presence or absence once he got into sorting through his thoughts. "There's not really much I can tell them."

Sherlock hummed, whether in agreement or discontent John couldn't tell, and swept out of the room.

* * *

Sure enough, Sherlock didn't so much as blink when John walked into his room at the inn barely an hour later. He sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, his eyes closed, hands lifted in front of his face as though to turn the pages of a book. John stood there for a moment, waiting, but the detective did not acknowledge him. He cleared his throat.

"John," Sherlock said perfunctorily, without moving or opening her eyes.

John blinked. "Uh. Hi," he said awkwardly. "Um. Is it still okay if I stay? Or would you rather I let you -"

"Please, John," the detective scolded, opening his grey-green eyes with a slight jerk of his torso, as though coming back to himself from very far away. "Take a seat. I'm not used to company while I do this, but I believe I will find it beneficial to have someone to talk to."

John hesitated for only the tiniest of seconds before Sherlock made an insistent gesture towards the only chair, and he sat. His friend let his eyes slide closed once more, but only took a long, slow breath in and out before throwing them wide open again and leaping to his feet with a sudden surge of energy.

"So," he said brightly. "Let's start with what we know." He lifted two sheets of paper from the pile that had sat in front of him. " _People._ First degree is obviously the Ladies themselves: Carfax," he pinned a sketch that looked as if it had been copied directly from the one that Lestrade was holding to the blank wall; "and Brackenstall." He pinned another, looser sketch to the opposite end of the wall. They looked as though they had been drawn by the same hand.

John frowned at them. "Who drew those?" he asked.

Sherlock stopped dead and blinked at him. "I did," he answered, as though he didn't fully understand the question.

"Jesu," John commented. "Is there anything you  _can't_  do?"

The detective paused, actually considering the question. "Yes," he answered finally. "But not many of them are important to me."

John lifted an eyebrow; Sherlock had almost sounded wistful. "What are the things that are?" he asked, wondering if he was pushing it.

"Not relevant to this," Sherlock dismissed offhandedly, turning away from John and back to the wall. John nodded acceptance. "So," the detective repeated. He picked an unframed portrait up from the ground and pinned it in the middle of the existing two. "The link between the two ladies is their drawing class, held by Christopher Miracle."

The portrait was indeed of the instructor, in the slightly uncomfortable, too-honest style that self-portraits always seemed to take. John raised an eyebrow. "But apart from being how they met, there wasn't anything worth investigating about the class," he pointed out.

Sherlock shrugged. "There didn't seem to be, no," he admitted. "Miracle himself certainly seemed blameless. But if that's where they saw each other, there's always the possibility someone else in the class overheard something they shouldn't have. Now that Lestrade can give a workable description of Peters' female co-conspirator it could be worth running that past our drawing instructor." He frowned at the wall, picking up two new sketches and fingering them thoughtfully. "Most of our other knowledge centres around Carfax," he observed. He pinned drawings of a man and a woman and a sketch of a mutilated ear above her portrait. "All the other people we know are involved have had witnessed contact with her, not with Lady Brackenstall: Peters, Crocker, even the Queen." His pinning of the drawings, punctuating each name, became suddenly more violent. "There must be something I'm missing about the Brackenstall case. Maybe I've focussed too much on Lady Carfax because of Mycroft." He picked up a piece of parchment with his brother's name on it and aggressively pinned it to the top of the wall with a bone-handled jackknife. John flinched.

"Does Angelo mind you doing this to his wall?" he asked pointedly.

The detective looked at the knife distractedly. "I'll pay for any repairs when I leave, he knows that," he replied. He picked up a ball of red string and tied one end to the knife and the other to the pin holding up his copy of the Carfax portrait.

John frowned at the red line, stark against the cream wall and black ink of the portraits. "I still don't see why Mycroft would be involved," he argued. "I mean, he works for the Queen. I can't see her Majesty ordering anyone to kidnap her own daughter. Especially not someone she doesn't like."

Sherlock gave John a look that told him he had just said something incredibly stupid. "Mycroft doesn't work for the Queen," he corrected scathingly. "He works for the Government, for the Nation. Only a fool would believe that Elizabeth Tudor - one person, one  _woman_  - rules the world."

"Then who does?" John retorted.

The detective smiled bitterly. "Mycroft," he said. "England's influence across the world has grown tenfold under Elizabeth's reign, but everything she does she does because Mycroft advises her to. And she's old now, her…  _commodity_  to the world is fading. If she's ill, then you can bet everything you own that he's looking for a replacement, someone who can continue to make England better. And if he thinks that Frances Carfax is that replacement, then he's not going to care how Elizabeth feels about his methods of securing her ascent to the throne. If he has to kidnap her, even hurt her, to get her to take the throne, then he will."

Unsure how to respond, John said nothing. Sherlock's firm belief in his brother's callous and calculating ambition scared him a little. He wondered what Mycroft had done to him when they were growing up.

"Shut up," Sherlock said vehemently, making John jump. "Shut up, John, you're distracting me. We don't have any proof that Mycroft is involved, it's dangerous to make me pursue that train of thought too much."

John opened his mouth to argue that he'd been trying to suggest Mycroft  _hadn't_ been involved, but closed it again fairly quickly. "Sorry," he said instead. Sherlock barely glanced at him, bending back to his pile of papers.

Within half an hour, the wall was covered in portraits and names, string linking various pieces like a spider's web. John had quickly lost track of what connected what; Sherlock had switched from the red string to an undyed one after a few moments to signify possible connections rather than certain ones, and covered the entire wall so quickly John had barely blinked and he had missed it. The detective was still talking at a phenomenal rate, but it was now more directed at himself than at John, and he had given up trying to understand more than the odd word.

In fact, since Sherlock hardly seemed aware that John was in the room at all, he had free reign to let both his mind and his eyes wander. It was a marvel to watch the detective work, watch the intrigued tilt of his head every time he stood back to consider his work, the excited little wiggle and jump he gave when he saw a new possibility, the disappointed grunt when he realised one or another of his thoughts wasn't plausible. John thought again how remarkable it was, the way Sherlock threw himself so completely into everything he did and blocked out everything else. Every thought the young man had was reflected in his entire body, bending and tensing with the thrill of it all. Through the loose white shirt he was wearing, John could see every flex of every muscle in his lithe frame, kept carefully in peak physical condition. He couldn't help himself staring, like he tried so hard not to every time they warmed up together before  _Dream_. Somehow in those situations Will always managed to place himself in John's line of sight when he looked at Sherlock, so that when he lost himself and began to stare he always caught a glimpse of his friend's amused expression and forced himself to look away.

But Will wasn't here now, and John couldn't stop looking. Even the thickest and most oblivious person in London couldn't deny that Sherlock was physically attractive, but it wasn't only the creamy curve of his neck or the way his trousers cupped his buttocks that drew John's eyes. There was something indefinably  _vibrant_  about Sherlock. And, of course, it didn't help John's situation that every time he looked at his friend he felt the intensity of acting with him, the passion and the romantic chemistry they had built together in the rehearsal room.

John was very aware of his own tendency to fall for his romantic co-stars; it made him incredibly uncomfortable how quickly he became genuinely attracted to the boys who played the women his own characters would lust after. He'd been half in love with Ben before Sherlock had turned his world upside-down. Was it different with Sherlock, because he was older and sensible enough to say no if he wanted to? Or was that just his longing attempting to justify itself?

He wondered what Sherlock would think if he knew how John thought about him, if he turned around right this moment and caught John's eyes lingering on his body. He didn't see Sherlock as the kind of man who would be disgusted at the idea, but it was different when it was happening to  _you_. He was almost certain that the detective would continue working with him, but would they still be friends? Would Sherlock look at him the same way ever again, with unabashed, unreserved excitement making his eyes blaze?

Or would Sherlock feel the same way? Everyone seemed to think it was unusual for his newest friend to spend so much time with one person for so long. Was it possible that the detective, too, felt that rush of excitement and  _connection_ whenever their eyes met? And if he did…

"No, that's not possible." John snapped his eyes back to Sherlock's face as he spoke, trying frantically to decipher  _what_  was not possible - had he spoken any of his thoughts aloud?

The detective frowned at him. John frowned back, unsure whether he'd actually done something wrong or whether Sherlock was just frustrated with his lack of progress. One of the letters to Marie Devine came loose from its pin and floated forlornly to the floor.

Sherlock took a deep breath. "There must be a link we're missing," he said slowly, as though forcing himself to be calm. "Someone, some _thing._ Crocker must have known Lady Brackenstall in some capacity, to be confident enough to pretend to be her lover. He knew a lot about her, where she came from, where and when in her life she might have met a lover. But he  _could_ have got all that from Carfax."

"Carfax didn't want to speak to him," John pointed out. "The only thing anyone ever overheard was her telling him to leave her alone. She wouldn't have been telling him intimate details about her acquaintances."

Sherlock arched an eyebrow in consent. "True," he agreed. "But then how  _did_ he know her?"

John had no answer for this, so he said nothing. "What about Lestrade?" he asked after a moment.

"What  _about_ Lestrade?" Sherlock repeated, a touch of irritation colouring his rich voice.

"Well - when you think about it, there are three missing persons cases here, and two of them have coincidentally ended up in Lestrade's lap. He's not the only Constable in the area, what are the chances of both Brackenstall and Tobias being brought to him?"

The detective seemed to consider the idea for a moment, but then he shook his head. "Too big to be significant," he dismissed. "Nice thought, John, but I can read Lestrade too easily for him to be involved in this."

John shrugged. A few weeks ago he may have been hurt by how quickly Sherlock had ignored his suggestions, but he had enough respect for Sherlock's methods now to know it wasn't meant to belittle him.

Sherlock clapped his hands together suddenly, taking a deep breath and looking around him. "Let's do something different," he said brightly. "Take my mind off it. I'll come back to it with fresh eyes later."

"All right." John stood, grinning at the immediate suggestion that John be with Sherlock to take his mind off the case and squashing the part of his mind that had several ideas of exactly  _how_ he could do that.

The detective eyed him critically, then gave a sharp sort of nod. "Dinner?" he asked with a brilliant smile. John couldn't help but return it.

"Starving."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly cannot apologise enough for how long this chapter has taken. I remember when I would feel awful if it took me longer than a month to update!
> 
> In my defence, my life is going through a fair bit of upheaval (exciting, good upheaval) and also this has been incredibly challenging for me to write - I think I am increasingly writing stories that just don't really end up suiting porn, which worries me a little, I'll miss writing porn! But I have so many porny ideas for this one I had to press on and find a way for it to fit.
> 
> Anyway I hope it's worth the wait for you guys, and one of my new year's resolutions is to dedicate more time to writing and discipline myself better with it, so hopefully I will never keep you waiting this long again!
> 
>  **Warnings:** this is where the explicit rating comes into play, but that should have been fairly self-explanatory from the start; the warning here is for sex that could turn out to be a negative emotional experience (ie nobody really talks about it before it happens and panic may result).
> 
> Happy New Year, everyone!

Angelo beamed at the two of them when they arrived in the bar downstairs; Sherlock tried to look unaffected, but John saw the edges of his mouth twitch upwards anyway. "On your way out, then?" the innkeep asked them, whisking a cloth around the inside of a mug with practiced ease.

"Actually, we thought we'd stay in tonight," Sherlock told him casually.

The big man's smile widened impossibly further. John imagined that that smile would be rather frightening if he saw it in any other context. "It would be my honour," he said with the tiniest of bows. "I'll find you a table."

"We're all right here," Sherlock tried to protest, but Angelo was already out from behind the bar and weaving his way between tables. John was impressed to see how many of them were full. He looked at Sherlock with a wry smile; the detective shook his head. "Honestly," he said in a mock despairing tone. "It's not like I saved his life, or anything."

John chuckled, though he had stopped believing Sherlock's theory that the burly innkeep put up with him out of gratitude for whatever it was that Sherlock had done for him. He thought, from looking at the two of them relate to each other, that Angelo had just genuinely come to like the detective and want to make his life as nice as possible.

He led them across the room to a table set behind a beam so that you could barely see the rest of the inn from the table, bleakly lit with candles hung across the beams. Sherlock gave him a rather pointed and almost annoyed look. "Thank you, Angelo," he said, shaking out his shirtsleeves and moving his chair to get the best view of the rest of the room. John smiled at the two of them, sitting in the other chair exactly where it had sat when they arrived.

"I'll get a candle for the table," the innkeep growled, actually _winking_ at the detective before moving off.

Sherlock sat down, still fiddling with his shirtsleeves and looking, to John's surprise, a little embarrassed. "Sorry about him," he said. "I don't know why he thinks he needs to do that. I mean, I haven't said anything that would make him think we needed all this."

John looked around them: it was a nice table, probably the nicest Angelo had. And the candles all around the table lit it well enough, so they didn't necessarily _need_ a candle on the actual table, but more light couldn't possibly hurt. "He just likes you," he said fondly. "He wants to give you the best things he can."

His friend looked awkward. "Yes," he said. Angelo ducked his head into the alcove and placed a candle in a red-stained glass lantern on the table between them, gave Sherlock the thumbs up, and left again. Sherlock cleared his throat. "Thank you, Angelo," he muttered through clenched teeth.

For a moment, John watched the strangely intimate red light playing across the detective's chin. Then it clicked: Angelo was trying to give them a romantic dinner together. The way he'd winked at Sherlock when he sat them down, he should have guessed it then - Angelo thought Sherlock was _courting_ him. He snorted aloud before he could stop himself. "I don't think he's serious," he said, when Sherlock looked even more embarrassed. "It's probably just a joke, because we're playing lovers in the theatre."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, looking unconvinced. "Perhaps," he admitted slowly.

"Will was talking to me about that a few days ago," John changed the subject abruptly, unsettled by Sherlock's discomfort over Angelo's teasing. "He says he'd love to write other plays for us, if you're interested." He tried to sound casual, as though he didn't have strong opinions either way, and then wondered if that attitude might offend the detective. "I definitely would be," he added hastily.

The other man smiled at him. "I would be interested to see what he comes up with," he said, leaning his chin on one fist thoughtfully. "I got the sense that _Hamlet_ started something with him, it was interesting to see him come out with _Twelfth Night_ to follow it. I expect that he will return to that sort of character tragedy, and I would be interested to be a part of it if he did."

John nodded thoughtfully. He hadn't even dared to consider what the play might be if the two of them worked together again.

"I'd love to do something a little more explicit with you," Sherlock said suddenly.

John's mind froze for a moment. He cleared his throat twice before he could bring himself to speak: the detective had said it so calmly, as though _explicit_ should mean nothing to John. "Um," he said after a moment.

Sherlock seemed to realise what he had said and jumped almost out of his skin. "Oh, 'zounds, no," he said hastily, shifting uncomfortably. "I didn't mean explicit as in - I just - I meant actually saying things out loud instead of just thinking them between the lines," he corrected himself.

Unsure whether to be relieved or disappointed, John laughed awkwardly. "Right, of course," he said.

With an uncanny knack for timing, Angelo poked his head around the corner of the alcove once more. "I'll give you these to start with," he said, slamming two mugs of ale onto the table between them.

Sherlock smiled tightly at him. "Thank you, Angelo," he said. John hadn't got the impression that Sherlock particularly liked full-bodied ale, but the detective picked up the drink and took a sip without grimacing. The innkeep gave them two thumbs up and vanished backwards into the inn once more. Sherlock cleared his throat. "What I meant was," he continued, as though there had been no disturbance, " _Hamlet_ was something completely new. It wasn't like anything he'd done before. And I'd be very surprised given how popular it was if he didn't attempt to replicate the formula. Perhaps with a stronger lead more suited to you."

John knew that Will had been incredibly proud of his _Hamlet_ , and he supposed that it would be surprising if he didn't try the same kind of thing again. "I'm certain he will now," he agreed. Sherlock smiled fondly at him, the candlelight extending the smile to the hollows under his sharp cheekbones, and John wondered if he hadn't given Angelo the idea all along.

The innkeep kept them well supplied with ale throughout the night, and Sherlock had not been mistaken in his suggestion that the food would be the big man's pride and joy; incredibly full of rich meat stew and ale, they retired up the stairs to Sherlock's bedroom.

"The thing is, though," Sherlock was saying, his own footsteps only the tiniest bit unsteady, "that no-one else has… no-one else uses _words_ the same way Shakespeare does. The way he puts the _sounds_ of the words together, so that they have this incredible cadence that you… you almost have to hear it twice because the first time you just listen to the actor's voice rise and fall." John sympathised, remembering the first time he had heard Will read his own sonnets back to himself. _"Now is the winter of our discontent_  
Made glorious summer by this son of York," Sherlock began, drawing out the sound of every word until John could swear his heartbeat slowed to the pentameter,  
_"And all the clouds that lowered upon our house_  
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried."

"It's beautiful," John agreed, though he didn't mean the language. Sherlock's voice seemed to flow through him like climbing into a hot bath.

The detective made a strong noise. "It's not just beautiful," he protested, "it's spectacular, it's _transcendent._ William Shakespeare is not just a playwright, he's an _artist_ , he makes music and - and _art_ \- every single word has purpose just like a painter's brushstroke, and his language doesn't just read, it _sings_ , it has a _shape_ and a dimension just like a marble sculpture. Speaking words in his order is a privilege. And speaking them with you…" Sherlock fell silent, as though he didn't quite know how to finish the sentence and suspected that it might be more sensible not to.

John blinked a few times, trying to encourage his friend without being too obvious, but Sherlock didn't continue. "Are you doing anything in the morning?" he asked after a moment of this silence. "We could try more of _As You Like It._ "

Sherlock hesitated. "I… I can't," he said reluctantly. "I'm - I said I'd rehearse some of _Twelfth Night_ with Molly."

"Oh," John said, completely unable to think of any other words. His stomach quickly sank to the level of his knees, leaving him feeling hollow and slightly queasy.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock apologised quickly, looking at the door to his room uncertainly before closing it behind them.

John tried to pull himself together. "No, it's ok," he insisted, knowing that he didn't sound like he meant it.

The detective looked crestfallen. "John, I -"

"It's fine," John deferred, raising his hands in surrender. "You _should_ be rehearsing more with Molly, you two have more lines and scenes together. There's more for you to rehearse."

Sherlock shook his head. "No, that's not right," he argued. "I only - I know Molly wants to learn and he's been asking me to rehearse for a while, it's not that I wanted -"

"Sherlock," John placated. "I understand. You have more to rehearse with Ben. And it's understandable that you might want a break from rehearsing with me, as well. You and I barely have any scenes together, and we've been over all of those and more already. _And_ nothing as important happens in those scenes as between Olivia and Viola."

His friend actually growled in frustration. "That makes it all the more important that you and I rehearse, John, don't you see?" he snapped. "Olivia and Viola's relationship is _in_ the lines, it's obvious and elaborated on and spoken about. Yours and mine is built entirely on subtext. We _have_ to work harder as actors to convey the subtext and make the romantic conclusion worthwhile."

John paused, slightly floored. He hadn't thought of it quite like that, but what Sherlock had said made sense. "That's why Shakespeare wrote the final scene the way he did," the detective continued. "Remember, you said when I came to complain about it that he had said that he wanted to write _other_ plays for us to see _different_ ways that we could work together. The way of working together he's chosen for this play is subtext, which means we've got to work for it. We've got to block, and practice, and _relate_ to each other in a way that makes the subtext not only obvious but _believable_. Like Orlando and Ganymede only less spoken - you can tell from the lines that Orlando fancies the man that Rosalind is pretending to be, but he never _says_ that, it's not written anywhere. Orsino and Cesario is simultaneously louder and far more subtle, because Viola is more melancholy than Rosalind and can't hold back how smitten she is, but _Twelfth Night_ takes place in the middle of a court, _with_ the Duke, so there isn't as much personal freedom for them to express their interest as there is in the Forest of Arden in _As You Like It,_ and therefore Orlando is a lot more open in returning the sentiment than Orsino is."

He stopped, closing his mouth with a sort of finality that told John he was having trouble keeping in more words. John nodded to show he understood. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I didn't think of it like that."

"Of course you didn't," Sherlock said, a little more sharply than John had expected. "I know that me spending time with Molly is a soft spot for you."

They were back to this: anger flooded John's blood with such ferocity that he had to take a few deep breaths before he could speak. "Sorry, _what_?" he asked, though he knew exactly _what._

"Don't worry, John," the detective snapped, running a long-fingered hand through his curls in unreasonable frustration. "I'm not about to steal him from you."

John snorted derisively. "What?" he repeated, almost shouting. "That is so completely not the point, Sherlock, you -"

"Don't deny it, John, I know you want him," Sherlock said, stilling himself with cold fury to look John heavily in the eye. "I know you think about it, like being the one he looks up to, the one he admires so much. And he'd let you if you tried, but you never will because you think you're nobler than that, while all the while you're driving him insane wondering whether you'll ever make a move. It's not nobility John, it's cowardice."

"You've got that so completely wrong," John argued, even though it wasn't strictly true. John had thought those exact things to himself multiple times. They just weren't the things driving this particular argument for him. "That's _so_ not the problem here, Sherlock."

The detective laughed coldly. "You actually believe that, don't you," he sneered. "There's a part of you that actually thinks you're good for him. Go on then, _Captain_ Watson, what _is_ the problem here? Why are you so touchy about Molly and I rehearsing together if you're not worried he'll like me more than you, worried that you'll lose your little _squeeze_?"

" _Because it's not Molly I'm jealous of here!_ " John yelled, closing his mouth in panic as soon as he had control of it again, taking quick, shallow breaths of terror. Sherlock stilled instantly, staring at him, clearly holding his breath.

But he had said it now. Sherlock had already calmed right down, he would work out exactly what John meant in the barest of seconds; he may as well commit. Maybe the younger man being irate would work for them in the theatre, maybe they could turn such a disaster to good. "You're the most observant man I've ever met," he continued, as calmly as he could. "I don't believe you haven't noticed." The detective didn't react, so John sighed and said it anyway. "I'm not jealous of you spending time with Molly, of Molly liking you instead of me. You've got that exactly the wrong way around."

For a long moment, Sherlock neither moved nor spoke, the silence between them deep and heavy. "Say it," the other man whispered once that moment had passed.

John took a deep breath. "I'm jealous of Molly spending time with you," he obliged. "Of _you_ liking him more than you like me. It's _you_ , Sherlock, surely you know that it's you that I…"

"What?" the detective interrupted on a breath, his plump lips parted, pale throat undulating with breaths he seemed barely able to draw. John swallowed.

"That I want," he admitted.

His heartbeat seemed dangerously fast and loud, but John ignored it, watching Sherlock for the tiniest reaction. The younger man did not disappoint: his mouth opened even further for a sharp inhale and exhale, and then just as John thought he would relent and walk away he lunged forwards with so much enthusiasm that he slammed John against the wall before their lips even connected. When they did connect, he was almost too focussed on the sharp pain in his head from being knocked against the plaster to feel it.

 _Almost_.

Sherlock was _kissing_ him, and John wasn't about to miss his chance. He sank a hand in the detective's curls and another in his coat and pulled him closer, feeling the still-frantic breaths puffing against his cheek and the thin chest struggling against his own. Sherlock's lips moved against his as though they were trying to drink him in, to swallow him whole, and John barely had a choice but to let him.

The _fervour_ with which the both of them were embracing the kiss took John by surprise, but he supposed it shouldn't have done. He himself had been so caught up in fantasies of the moment that he hadn't even imagined how it might happen in reality, and he'd never dared to hope that the other man had been trapped under just as much anticipation and tension as he himself had been, that the release was like surfacing from underwater, like breathing fresh air after years trapped in a cellar.

And then it was over, far sooner than John wanted it to be, and Sherlock was drawing away from him, gasping for breath, wincing as John's hand caught in a tangle in his hair. The detective looked completely taken aback; clearly the explosion of relief and _want_ had caught him by just as much surprise as it had John. "Sherlock -" John began, feeling as though he ought to reassure his friend somehow, say _something_ that would stop him from wanting to walk away from this.

"Shh," the younger man interrupted, and kissed him again.

John shut up. Sherlock's mouth would not be distracted, relentlessly focussed with a skill that would have surprised him if he didn't know that the detective excelled at everything he chose to do. And he had _definitely_ chosen this. His hands were everywhere, pawing at John's chest impatiently despite the fact that John's hands were hooked back into his coat pulling him closer. John felt as though he could never be close enough, never be pressed tightly enough against the other man, never kiss him deeply enough. He wanted to drown in Sherlock, in the fruity smell of his lush hair and the taste of their meal and their conversation on his lips.

Heat swept through him in waves like a fever, making him dizzy; he was pressed so tightly against Sherlock that he couldn't breathe and it still wasn't close enough. He knew his own body well enough to know that his lips would bruise in the morning from how desperately they were pressing themselves together, and couldn't help but hope that the younger man's pale skin would also be red and sensitive, that every time he formed words he would be reminded of this moment. He forgot about Molly, forgot about their stupid argument, forgot about everything except how badly he had wanted this for how long, how many inappropriate daydreams and lingering glances had led them there and how incredible it felt now that they had reached the revelation.

Aware that he was probably pulling Sherlock's hair half out of his scalp, John attempted to loosen his grip, tried to regain some semblance of restraint before he injured one of them with the sheer need roaring in his ears, but the detective made a piteous whimpering sound as John's fingers moved against his scalp and somehow all he succeeded in doing was turning them around so that it was _Sherlock_ being pressed relentlessly into the wall; he found himself dragging the backs of his fingernails against the hot skin, his other fist clenching in the thick coat he couldn't figure out why his friend was still wearing. Sherlock shuddered underneath his hands, his back bowing as he slid an inch down the whitewashed wall in complete submission.

John had always known for his liking of being in charge of his romantic and sexual encounters. It wasn't that he liked bossing people around, just that he liked to know that his partner _trusted_ him, was willing to hand over responsibility to John to take care of their pleasure, to make sure they were happy in their relationship. His friend's show of subconscious letting go played exactly into John's desires, drove him incrementally higher until his hands shook with it against the bare skin of Sherlock's hips.

The detective threw his head back against the wall and _groaned_ , loud and hot with passion; then in a sudden flurry of effort he pushed John away just far enough to shrug his coat and waistcoat off as if they were burning him, ripping his shirt the rest of the way out of his trousers to give John better access to his chest. Not one to spurn a gift, John surged forwards as soon as Sherlock's hands were clear, trapping his lips once more and sliding his hands up the invitingly warm skin underneath the loose shirt. The moan this time was pressed against John's lips; they vibrated at the speed of Sherlock's breathing, synchronising the two of them yet further. His friend's pale skin was soft and unbelievably _alive_ \- John had never considered how often he thought of Sherlock as cold, untouchable, like a marble statue placed somewhere to be revered but never reached. It was a fundamentally flawed view; certainly the detective came across as unemotional in the interactions with other people that John had seen, and a few other members of the crew of _Dream_ seemed to find it unsettling that he could switch from that to the vibrancy of his emotions on stage so smoothly, but John had seen the other side to him. While involved in his detective work Sherlock seemed a whole different person, energetic and elated and so _responsive_. It ought not to surprise John that this Sherlock, who shuddered and made little moans at each stroke of John's fingers on his chest, was hot to the touch, pliable and so human that John couldn't help himself, pushing Sherlock's shirt higher until the younger man grew impatient and yanked it over his head.

John stared for the barest of seconds; the thin, loose shirts that his friend wore never left much to the imagination, but it was something else entirely to _see_ him bared so deliberately, his chest heaving slightly with each deep breath. He lifted his hands once more to swipe his thumbs gently over Sherlock's dusky nipples, earning another deep groan as Sherlock's own long-fingered hands deftly unhooked John's shirt from his trousers. When John looked up at him, Sherlock quirked one corner of his mouth upwards, his eyebrow lifting in a silent question.

Sherlock's chest buckled as John's hands clamped down on it involuntarily. John squashed their lips together once again, letting out a groan as Sherlock's tongue immediately darted against his. He scraped his fingernails against the flesh underneath them once more, delighting in the feeling of the detective's stomach muscles contracting with a moan and his hands clutching tighter at the waistband of John's trousers, tugging them closer together and pressing both his palms against John's buttocks as he ground his own hips down.

A shout escaped John's lips; the pressure had forced the air from his stomach right out of his mouth and the surprise of discovering that both of them were suddenly, achingly hard had given voice to the air in a far-too-loud _oh!._ Sherlock chuckled wildly and shoved a hand over John's mouth, whispering a _shh_ ing noise that sounded more like a giggle. John snorted in amusement at the thought of his shout alerting Angelo downstairs to their activities; the big man would probably march right up the stairs to congratulate them, no matter what he knew they were doing. "Sorry," he murmured against the detective's thin fingers, his hips squirming impatiently as though irritated at his mouth attempting to slow things down.

"I suppose we'll just have to keep your mouth occupied," Sherlock replied wryly, removing his hand in order to replace it with his lips, pulling their groins together in another long, shivery roll that made John's thighs ache with effort and his knees tingle.

He laughed again once he had managed to disentangle their mouths and could breathe again after the pleasure between their legs faded slightly. " _My_ mouth?" he teased. "I've been making less noise than you." To illustrate the point, he ground their hips together once more, quick and brutal this time; sure enough, Sherlock bit off a loud noise, then chuckled, admitting defeat.

"All right," he conceded, sliding two long, thin fingers innocently under John's waistband. "Perhaps both our mouths will have to find other things to do."

John grinned, and set to, trying his best to angle his hips to give Sherlock's wandering fingers the best access possible while his mouth was busy. When the pressure of their rocking hips was no longer enough to keep him upright John slipped his own hand between them to the incredible bulge in Sherlock's trousers, wrapping his fingers around it as best he could and pressing. Sherlock groaned louder than ever, biting down on John's lower lip as though that could keep the sounds in. John tightened his grip in retaliation, chuckling into the younger man as this resulted in Sherlock's hand tightening in his hair and the fingers withdrawing from his trousers, impatiently pulling at the ties instead in an unusually clumsy attempt to open them.

He had Sherlock's trousers open far quicker than the detective seemed to be able to, yanking them down to his mid-thigh, his fingers settling in the hot hollows of Sherlock's hip-bones, skirting around the thick, dark hair attempting to hide his manhood.

It hit him all of a sudden as he looked down, forcing him to draw a sharp breath in. _This was happening_. It was happening so fast that this seemed to be the first he was realising it, but it was definitely happening. When he breathed out shakily and wrapped a hand around Sherlock's generously long erection he was actually _touching Sherlock's cock_ , and when his friend dipped his head to moan and bite at John's neck he was doing it because he was enjoying John's touch, because John was giving him pleasure. The young actor's soft curls tickled at John's chin and his cock was velvety and so _solid_ under his fingers.

Sherlock finally succeeded in untying the points on John's trousers, yanking at the flaps until he could free John's own erection and gently stroke his long fingers up its length; John felt his knees beginning to buckle and pushed his hips forward, steadying himself against his partner and inadvertently sliding their erections together. Sherlock whimpered as John's cock slipped in the hot liquid around the tip of his own, and this was _better,_ this was so much better than their hands could ever be, and Sherlock's teeth digging into the pulse point on his neck was making his stomach jump with every heartbeat and winding him tighter and tighter. He wrapped a hand around both of them just to keep them in place and thrust again, holding his hips still at the point where he could no longer be sure he _had_ legs below the knee, couldn't think of any part of his body the web of pleasure didn't quite reach. He had just enough presence of mind to register that the detective had stopped biting him in favour of whining softly against his neck, his fingernails digging into John's back and buttock as his hips jerked involuntarily and another fat bead of liquid dripped from his long prick onto John's, smoothing the way for their thrusts.

 _"Shhh,"_ John chuckled, steadying himself for a moment in order to move the hand holding him up against the wall to thread gently through Sherlock's hair. The younger man grunted in acknowledgment, and John felt his lips curve into a smile against his skin, but the whines started up again within moments. He laughed again at the ridiculousness of it, the way Sherlock had to bend his back to rest his head against John's shoulder the way he was doing, the fact that _they were doing this_ , the way Sherlock seemed to be struggling to stay still and allow John to control their movement but his muscles kept betraying him, giving out involuntary little jerks and thrusts as his stomach muscles contracted. He hooked his fingers tighter into Sherlock's hair and pulled, easing his friend's head up until he could press their lips together once more, delving his tongue into the deep heat at the back of Sherlock's mouth, _needing_ the detective's own tongue flicking against his wisdom teeth in return. His skin was so hot he almost felt cold and yet somehow Sherlock's felt even hotter, like the detective was about to twitch right out of his skin.

He could feel himself speeding closer to his finish like riding a stampeding horse and he knew he ought to slow down, to savour the pleasure and the moment, but somehow he couldn't force his hips to a stop, couldn't give up any of the feelings coursing through his body even for a moment. "Sherlock," he murmured instead, peeling their lips apart to whisper the name against skin, but the detective only groaned loudly, his hips jerking still harder. The detective seemed to have completely lost awareness of his surroundings, and the sight of him like this, his eyes wild and wanting, his fingers digging into John's back and hips harder with each thrust of their hips, made it impossible for John to do anything but tighten his grip around their cocks, bite harder at Sherlock's lips and the tongue.

 _"John,"_ his friend grunted into his mouth in response, pulling them in tighter to each other, separating their mouths just long enough to take a deep gasping breath and lick a wet stripe up his own palm, supplementing John's grip with his own and letting out another rich moan. The added pressure proved far too much for the last of John's restraint; with a whimper, he surged forwards, stepping between Sherlock's legs and pinning him to the wall with his entire body, groaning when the detective hooked one knee over his hipbone as further leverage to push his groin harder against John's with a high-pitched wail. For a moment they writhed together in this space, both pushing harder to chase their own pleasure, frantic and thoughtless with desperation; then Sherlock shuddered urgently, and bit down so hard on John's shoulder he knew it would leave a bruise. John utterly failed to hold back a moan as the detective flailed and hot wetness spread between them. His own cock throbbed painfully but he backed off, slowing his thrusts and allowing Sherlock to control his slides through their clasped hands as he whimpered and shook, slowing with each gasping breath until he finally allowed his limbs to relax, his knee slipping from its hook on John's hipbones.

For a moment he panted there, hanging limp, John's body the only thing keeping him from becoming a pile of long limbs on the floor. Then he heaved a deep breath in and straightened slightly, attempting to take his own weight back onto his legs; the movement caused his softening prick to slip out of the grip they each still had, and John couldn't stop a whine and a twitch at the sensation. Sherlock looked up at him abruptly, his cheeks flushed pink with climax, as though he had forgotten that John was there at all. "John," he murmured, releasing the grip on both hands in order to stroke two fingers down John's back, making a soft sound against the fabric of his shirt, and why was he still wearing a shirt?

Sherlock took advantage of John giving him an inch of space to shrug his shirt over his head and wrapped one hand around John's erection, spreading the fluid from his own finish over the head to smooth the way for long, luxurious strokes that made John's knees tremble, the younger man's tongue parting John's lips again.

John groaned loudly; Sherlock's fingers were thin and strong and his palm was smooth and he seemed to be able to read exactly what John wanted from each upward stroke, his full lips quirking into a smile as he studied John's face between ardent kisses. After a few moments of this, the detective grinned wider and dropped to his knees in one smooth movement, sliding his thumb over the head of John's cock as he went. John felt himself folding forwards until his head almost hit the wall, one hand flying without help to fix itself into Sherlock's lush curls. With another bright grin, Sherlock tipped himself forwards and took the tip of John's cock into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and making John grip his hair so hard he was afraid he might pull clumps of it out.

"Sherlock, please," John begged, afraid he might tremble out of his own skin if his friend kept up the gentle, teasing pace.

He felt Sherlock's mouth curve upwards into a smile, but the detective obliged; the hand steadying the base of his penis tightened and his mouth advanced, _exactly_ the speed and tension that John needed so desperately. He could feel the pleasure and the relief spreading through his veins like warm ale, weakening his muscles and whiting out his vision until he bit down on his own lip so hard he tasted blood, grunted out a warning to the detective and gave in to the rush, to the white behind his eyes and the roaring in his ears and the feeling that lightning was striking every inch of his body.

When he recovered enough to breathe again he slumped down the wall beside Sherlock, who had folded his legs out from underneath him to sit with his back against the wall, panting and delicately wiping the corners of his mouth. John snorted; it seemed so odd, seeing someone so composed handle something so helplessly undignified.

The detective started to laugh as well, and within moments the two of them had dissolved into helpless giggles, resting their heads against the wall behind them as they let it all out. John hadn't seen whether the room beside Sherlock's had been let that night or not, but he felt mildly sorry for anyone who may have been in the room. They had left the restaurant downstairs rather late, other tenants were most likely attempting to sleep.

After a while the giggles faded and the reality of their surroundings crept up on them; the detective broke off his last chuckle with a discomfited grunt and slid down the floor in order to lift his hips and work his trousers back up his thighs. The gracelessness of the motion set John off again, but now that Sherlock had brought it to his attention his own trousers were biting into his thighs and he had to imitate his friend, rolling clumsily onto the floor to pull them up to a more comfortable level. When he had finished struggling he looked over at the detective, now lying on the floor beside him staring up at the ceiling with a mildly concerned look on his elegant face. John rolled onto his side to look at him more clearly, frowning at his expression.

Sherlock rolled over to face him, but whatever had been plaguing him seemed to resolve itself when he got there, and he leaned in to press a gentle kiss to John's lips instead.

Kissing Sherlock like this - slowly and gently, like it meant something more than furious arousal at least partly brought on by frustration and jealousy - was completely unlike what they had just done, and it sent a whole new frisson of feeling down John's spine. A rush of affection for his friend flooded through him and he smiled into Sherlock's lips, tucking one hand around the other man's waist and tugging the rest of their bodies together. Sherlock hummed in contentment.

"John," he said softly once they drew apart; John smiled at him encouragingly. "I - the floor isn't particularly comfortable."

John laughed, watching Sherlock squirm against the floorboards. "No," he agreed. "Perhaps the bed would be better?"

He wasn't sure if that was acceptable, to imply so openly that he stay, but the detective only smiled. "Perhaps," he agreed, pressing another quick kiss to John's lips and propelling himself to his feet.

John's thighs protested as he clambered upright himself; he knew that they would not be pleased with him the next day, and knew that Will would notice his discomfort instantly, particularly if Sherlock was similarly inconvenienced. Will would disapprove, he was certain. He'd had mixed opinions of John's feelings for Sherlock from the beginning, but the playwright hated his co-stars becoming romantically involved during production of a play. There was too much room for things to go wrong and the two people to be unable to stay in a room together, let alone on a stage.

He watched Sherlock work his trousers down his legs, stretching his naked body unashamedly for a moment with a wicked grin in John's direction before he pulled his shirt back over his head and climbed into the rickety bed. John chuckled at him.

 _But this is Sherlock,_ he thought.  _That won't happen to us._


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry this has been so long! Moved countries for the third time in eight months but I'm done moving now and I'm once again living in an extremely inspiring environment and I have a good system going for my writing so I'm hopeful! I've had a few messages from worried people but please, everyone rest assured that I have way too much invested in this story to give up on it for good, I know where it's going and I will finish it, I promise!
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me.

William Shakespeare looked John up and down the instant he walked into the room and rolled his eyes with a sigh of exasperation. "You didn't," he said bluntly.

Faced with such blatant disapproval John almost felt guilty. "Obviously I did," he countered, sitting down in the chair opposite his friend and trying to look indignant. The playwright put down his paper and gave John his full attention, placing his hands deliberately on the arms of his chair. John sighed under his scrutiny. "Will - I know why you disapprove but honestly, this actually solved a problem we were having that would have affected our performance."

Will arched a dark eyebrow. John had known he wouldn't approve, but the excuse he'd been telling himself didn't seem to have impressed his friend in the slightest. "Solved it," the other man repeated calmly.

John thought about lying, thought about sticking to the story he'd begun almost as a knee-jerk reference to Will's obvious disappointment, but he hadn't started it well and he didn't want his belligerent insistence that he'd done 'the right thing' to turn into something he couldn't fix. He sighed instead.

"No," he admitted. Will's other eyebrow joined the first in reaching for his steadily receding hairline. "Will, I'm sorry," he said, settling further down in the chair. The playwright's posture immediately changed; he relaxed a little and leaned forwards in his seat, his expression sympathetic rather than disapproving, a friend rather than a colleague. "It all happened so fast, I wasn't - we were arguing and then all of a sudden we were kissing and it was _brilliant,_ and -"

"Was it Molly?" Will interrupted, frowning mightily.

This stopped John dead for a moment. His best friend smiled almost pityingly. "John," he said, almost pityingly. "I know you better than you know yourself, and I'm getting to know Sherlock a lot better than he thinks I am."

He'd always known he couldn't keep anything from William Shakespeare, and yet every time his friend revealed some specific intimate detail that he knew about John it still made him a little uncomfortable. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yes, it was Molly," he admitted. One corner of Will's mouth twitched sympathetically. "You know I like Sherlock. He could obviously tell I have… inappropriate feelings for Molly as well but he got completely the wrong end of the stick - he thought I was jealous of him for rehearsing with Molly when I don't get to so much, but really it was the other way around. So I sort of shouted that at him, and that's when the kissing started, and so I thought we were okay."

Will nodded. "But?"

"But it all happened so fast," John repeated dully. "We never stopped to think about what we were doing. And now I think... I think maybe we should have talked more first. I think he's... not as okay with it as I am, after we've had a chance to think about it."

They had clambered into the tiny bed together, after, awkwardly fitting themselves side by side, Sherlock stiffly keeping his arms to one side as though unsure how to proceed. John propped himself up on one elbow to grin at him, softening it into a fond smile when the detective stiffened further as though afraid John was laughing at him.

He tried lying beside Sherlock, but after the third time his legs slipped off the side of the bed he gave in and turned over, throwing one arm possessively around his friend to anchor himself, smiling as the detective placed one warm hand over his arm and turned in to the contact with a tiny noise that may have been relief, shuffling the two of them around until his lips pressed against John's hair and their arms wrapped tightly around each other. John smiled.

He fell asleep easily, but with a lingering awareness that Sherlock was still wide awake, shifting uncomfortably every now and again, his heartbeat rising and falling against John's ear in the wild cycles of someone incredibly far from restfulness.

Sherlock was asleep when John woke up, however, his breath ghosting into John's hair, fingers twitching absently in the fabric of John's shirt. John smiled happily, wriggling closer to his friend; Sherlock made a soft sound in his sleep and tightened his arms around him.

John would have been content to lie there for another few hours, perhaps days - but it was after only a few minutes that the detective drew in an especially deep breath and shifted, clutching reflexively tighter to John for the tiniest second.

Then he froze, his breath caught and halted in his chest, and his heartbeat stuttered and then started to race in panic.

John sat up; the detective's arms fell away from his chest as though the other man had only been looking for an excuse to withdraw them. "Sherlock," he said, as calmly as he could. His friend blinked at him for the barest of moments, and then forced a smile. John allowed his relief to show on his face. "Good morning," he said, lowering himself back onto one elbow and grinning at the detective. "Sleep ok?"

Sherlock shrugged, a tentative smile growing across his face. "I've slept worse," he said offhandedly. Limbs shaking slightly with apparent relief, the detective gave a tiny grunt of effort as he stretched against the sheets, his pale body straining. John had to restrain himself from licking his lips. "What time is it?" Sherlock asked vaguely, struggling half-heartedly to sit up.

John raised an eyebrow; he wasn't sure whether to be worried or impressed that his friend seemed to have lost the ability to instantly know simple things like the time. He glanced at the shadows creeping closer to the bed across the floor, but before he could answer in a space unfamiliar to him the detective had cursed wildly and vaulted himself over John to his feet, shirt whispering across his face on the way past. John sat up, slightly bewildered by the sudden rush of energy. "Sherlock -" he tried.

"How did I sleep so late?" the detective growled, sounding furious. He hopped around the room for a moment with uncharacteristic clumsiness and one leg half-in his unnaturally tight trousers; John could almost feel the moment they had had slipping away from him like flour through closed fingers. "I _never_ do that. I have trouble sleeping for an hour at a time, how could I let this happen?"

John blinked. "You - you only sleep for an hour at a time?" Sherlock, finally having managed to get his trousers up around his narrow hips, stopped rooting through the pile of clothes and papers on the chair by the door to glare at John for a moment. "Sherlock - what's the big deal? You must have needed the sleep."

The taller man threw a rich purple waistcoat across the room with another growl of frustration. "I'm going to be late," he said, finally lifting a wad of papers high with a _hah_ of triumph and tucking them into his pocket. "I said I'd meet Molly before ten, I should have left already."

"Ah!" Will said knowingly. John grimaced.

"It's not like I thought he'd cancel his plans," he defended. "It shouldn't have surprised me and it definitely shouldn't have upset me, but like a fool I reacted anyway."

The playwright nodded, sympathetic expression back in place. "And he didn't like it. Naturally."

John shook his head, twisting his hands together awkwardly to match what was going on in the pit of his stomach. "He was already angry - I think he got a fright when he woke up, he said he doesn't usually sleep much."

Will snorted. "Of course he doesn't, that man runs on cockiness and adrenaline."

"And tea," John added with a grin despite himself. "Tea wakes you up, apparently."

One dark eyebrow reached skywards. " _Tea?_ Where does Sherlock get tea?"

John chuckled. "The innkeep of the place he's staying gets it somewhere, he won't say where."

"His inkeeper is a tea smuggler," Will summarised, amusement visible in every inch of his face. He reached for the small ale on the table and buried his face in it with a wry grin. "What kind of people have you been associating with, Watson?"

He wanted to laugh, but the realisation made his heart sink instead. If he had blown it with Sherlock this morning - if he stopped associating with the detective how many other people would he lose? He knew even if they ever saw each other Angelo would probably never speak to him again, the man was so fiercely loyal to Sherlock. He'd begun to be rather fond of Constable Lestrade as well; when would he ever have the occasion to see him again? And how would Molly react, who worshipped Sherlock - who would he side with? _What had he done?_

"John!" Will snapped, clicking his fingers urgently. John quite suddenly remembered how to breathe. "Please calm down. I don't think it's as bad as you think."

"I hope not," John said, after enough deep breaths to get his heart rate manageable.

Sherlock had been so caught up in his apparent shock that he was shrugging his coat up his shoulders before he glanced back at the bed, where John was still sitting bewildered. The detective had paused for the barest of seconds before his face fell. "John," he said. John couldn't tell whether the tone of voice was intended to be placating or disappointed.

"It's fine," he brushed off quickly, standing up and hunting around for his own pants. "I know you have to go, I just - I'd just hoped I could spend a little more time with you this morning."

His friend frowned, looking almost pitying. _Poor, sad John, can't separate his emotions, falls in love with every boy he plays opposite._ John shivered the thought away: this was so much more than that, and he _knew_ Sherlock had felt the same. "I've been promising Molly I'd practice with him for weeks, I can't just not go," the detective excused. John was sure he was imagining the hesitation in his voice, as though Sherlock was trying to convince himself more than he was John.

John smiled, dragging his trousers out from where they had somehow ended up under the bed. "I know," he assured him. "Go, I can show myself out. I'll see you this afternoon?"

Sherlock hesitated for the barest of seconds before nodding. "See you this afternoon," he agreed. He took the tiniest of steps forward, and for a moment John thought he would cross the room and press a kiss to John's lips; but the moment passed, and Sherlock heaved a brief sigh before leaving the room in a swirl of that magnificent coat.

John sat on the bed for a few more minutes, his head in his hands. He could count on one hand the number of people he'd woken up beside that he had actually wanted to stay, and he'd never messed any of those relationships up this quickly. Once he had finished wallowing in this knowledge, he took a deep breath, shrugged on the rest of his clothes, and made his way downstairs.

Luck was not on his side: Angelo, stood behind the high bar polishing mugs, caught his eye the moment he descended the staircase. "Oho!" the big man called, not perturbed by the way John immediately looked away and kept walking. "I _thought_ I saw you two go up together last night! Went well, then, did it, Watson? _Watson!"_

He kept his head down, unable to even stop and fake a smile, certainly unable to show Angelo that his beloved lodger may have been hurt. His throat tight with shame, John pushed past an early morning diner and out into the cold.

Will raised an eyebrow. "That's it?" he said incredulously.

John looked up in surprise. "What do you mean, _that's it_? I've never seen anyone panic that badly. He had plenty of time to get to the Globe by ten, he just sort of _fled_. I rushed him into something he wasn't ready for."

"Oh, John," the playwright sighed. "You are definitely in the right profession."

He'd already opened his mouth to deny it when he realised what his friend had said. "What?"

Will grinned. "Only two types of people can get away with being that dramatic. Actors and surgeons, and the surgeons only because people are too afraid of those little knives to laugh at them."

Despite himself, John cracked a tiny smile. "And detectives," he had to add.

"Yes, well, I imagine the way Sherlock does detective work it's basically theatre," the playwright cracked. They both laughed, John picturing some of Sherlock's most intense dramatic gestures and pauses, and then Will leaned forwards seriously. "John, I really think you're overreacting," he placated. "I don't imagine Sherlock finds himself in that situation very often, _I_ would have needed some space after something like that. Remember when we first slept together? I barely talked to you for a few days, that didn't mean I wasn't madly in love with you. I just needed some time to process what was happening because I'd never felt like that about anyone before."

John stared at his oldest friend, a lump rising in his throat. He did remember that - Will had told him he had to be at his apprenticeship almost every moment of the week after they first fell into bed together and John had believed him. He smiled weakly, a familiar rush of affection filling him for the other man. "Will, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't leave because of you -"

"I know," his friend dismissed. "I know the army was something you needed to do that was nothing to do with me, and Anne wasn't anything to do with you. When I think about us back then - it was great, but I don't know where either of us would be now if we'd stayed together. I'm just happy that you've found someone now that you look at the way you used to look at me, who looks at you the way I used to."

He smiled, the lump closing up his throat and making his eyes threaten to sting. He'd known that Will had hated him for leaving at the time, and couldn't help but take it personally when he had returned and found his old lover married. They'd moved past those issues years ago, but John had always wondered whether his friend still harboured that secret grudge. "I love you, Will," he assured him fondly, knowing that the playwright would take it in the fond but platonic way it was meant. He knew he was incredibly lucky to have kept the man so close.

Shakespeare snorted. "I love you too," he said fondly. "Now go get Sherlock."

John chuckled, but stood up, already composing something to say to the great detective in the back of his mind. Will grinned at him from the old writing desk. "And when you've finished confessing your love for him, ask him if he knows anyone who looks like him who wants an acting job."

* * *

He let himself into the Globe as quietly as he could, listening to the rising sounds of voices coming from the stage; once the heavy door eased shut behind him he could identify the familiar sounds of Sherlock and Molly's voices rising and falling in smooth pentameter. Having avoided their attention successfully, John slipped into the front row of the stands to watch them.

Sherlock was knelt in the centre of the stage, one leg bent in front of him to keep him upright, his eyes downcast in Molly's direction; the young actor was stood behind him, practically bouncing with nervous energy. John smiled at the picture the two of them made.

" _Be not afraid, good youth,"_ Molly was saying, walking in an idle but slightly predatory circle around the detective. _"I will not have you:_  
And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,  
Your were is alike to reap a proper man:  
There lies your way, due west."

Sherlock bowed his head yet further in agreement, more docile than John had ever seen him. _"Then westward-ho!"_ he said brightly, pushing himself back to his feet. _"Grace and good disposition_  
Attend your ladyship!  
You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?"

John chuckled slightly at the trapped expression through the detective's thin frame as Molly stepped forwards and caught his arm. _"Stay:  
I prithee, tell me what thou thinkest of me."_

_"That you do think you are not what you are,"_ Sherlock obliged after an exaggerated deep breath in.

_"If I think so, I think the same of you,"_ Molly replied, affronted.

Sherlock shrugged. " _Then think you right; I am not what I am."_

The boy followed his steps, clasping his hands in front of his bosom wistfully. _"I would you were as I would have you be!"_ he cried.

" _Would it be better, madam, than I am?"_ The detective spun on his heels and made to push Molly away from him, but the younger actor fumbled the move and his hands didn't connect. "Oh," Sherlock said, grabbing Molly by the arm to steady him. "I'm sorry - how much fight training have you had?"

Molly laughed awkwardly. "Um. Not too much, women don't tend to fight much. I can be slapped and that's about it."

Sherlock smiled. "Okay - when I put my hands on you, bring yours up to cover them and push down." He demonstrated by grabbing one of Molly's hands and pressing it to his chest. John prepared himself for the usual rush of jealousy, but was hit instead by a wave of fondness for the detective. "I will pull my hands away before I actually touch you, that way all the control is yours and I can't possibly hurt you. If you want out for any reason you just let go and my hands will fly away from you. It's perfect for strangle holds, but it works for pushing as well if you want to be safe." Molly nodded, pulling back on Sherlock's hand.

"All right," he said slowly.

"Shall we walk through it at half speed?" Sherlock asked, stepping back and turning away again.

The boy cleared his throat and reset. _"I would you were as I would have you be!"_ he repeated. Sherlock slowly turned around and reached for him, but Molly locked their hands together, pulling the detective's long fingers against his chest for a moment before releasing them and reeling backwards as if in shock.

"Good," Sherlock smiled at him. "Again at that speed, then we'll try full-speed." They parted once more to reset; the taller man cast his eyes quickly around the arena, and came to rest on John.

For a moment, neither of them reacted; John was holding his breath, waiting for the detective to look angry or upset, but before he could do anything but look slightly wary Molly had followed his gaze and spotted him in the stands. "John!" he called happily. "I didn't see you there."

John forced a smile at his young friend. "I haven't been here long," he assured him. "I just wanted to speak to Sherlock for a moment, then I'll let the two of you get back to it."

Sherlock swallowed so hard John could see it from across the theatre. Ben grinned, clearly not picking up on the tension between them. "Of course," he chirped brightly. The detective smiled tightly at him and jumped lightly from the stage. John smiled as his younger friend immediately cleared his throat and turned to an imaginary stage partner. _"O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful  
In the contempt and anger of his lip!" _he recited wistfully. John caught his eye and grinned encouragingly before ducking into an alcove as Sherlock approached.

"Before you say anything, Sherlock, I'm sorry that I interrupted you and Molly, but I have something I need to say," John said quickly as the detective turned the corner to greet him.

Sherlock hesitated for a moment, looking awkward, before he nodded. John took a deep breath. "Thank you," he said. "I need to apologise for my behavior this morning. It shouldn't have thrown me that you were meeting Molly. You told me before anything happened between us - I _didn'_ t think for a second that you meant anything other than what this is, I just got a shock. I suppose I just couldn't get over all my anxieties about you and Molly overnight, but I'm working on it. I handled this terribly and I promise, if you give me another chance it won't happen again. Last night was incredible, Sherlock, can we just pretend that the morning after never happened?"

He wanted to say more, felt like it could never be enough, but he was aware that he was babbling so he forced himself to stop. Sherlock breathed slowly for a moment, the tiniest of frowns on his face.

Then, astonishingly, he chuckled.

"Oh, John," he said through the grin. "I _know_ that. I didn't leave because I thought you still wanted Ben. I had to leave early to pick up a few extra scripts for us to use and I… I just needed some fresh air, some space to think."

John gaped for the barest of seconds; before he had a chance to say anything Sherlock had wrapped him in a tight hug, still chuckling vaguely into his shoulder. "John, I am well enough versed in the theory of emotion, but I had never experienced it first-hand until I met you. Now I've spent enough time around you and Molly to know jealousy, and I _know_ it can't be conquered overnight." He released him to arm's length with a sheepish smile. "I'm still fighting mine too. But what I felt last night, that's stronger than my jealousy, and I know it's stronger than yours, so I know we'll get over it. I always thought emotions were inadvisable because they're irrational and they're never certain, but the way I feel about you is one of the most rational and certain things I've ever encountered. I needed to think about that away from you for a moment, so I -"

" _Sherlock,"_ John murmured through the lump in his throat. He'd always known that Sherlock _felt_ , just as strongly as anyone else John had ever met, but he hadn't expected such a concrete declaration from him. He pulled the other man back into a hug, tears prickling in his eyes. "I - I'm sure of you too."

The detective pressed their lips together without giving an inch between their bodies, his lips insistent and relentless; John melted into him, sheer relief making his knees weak. "Will you have dinner with me tonight?" he asked once he could bear to breathe.

Sherlock chuckled. "Of course, John," he replied with a quick press of his lips to John's once more. "I believe Angelo would be delighted to host us again."

"I'm sure he'd be thrilled," John agreed. "I left him in a hurry this morning, he might be worried."

"Oh," the detective frowned. "In that case, definitely Angelo's. He will need to be set right."

They smiled fondly at each other for a moment, John's heart still learning how to slow down after the morning's panic and subsequent intense relief. Then Sherlock glanced hesitantly back at the corner of the wall that hid them from the stage. "I really ought to go back," he said, his fingers tightening on John's arm as though he could think of nothing less appealing. "Would you like to join us? I thought after a little more thought of this scene we would try something else, perhaps something with room for a third player."

John grinned in delight. "I would love to," he agreed.

Molly actually jumped in excitement when they both stepped onto the stage. "You're joining us?" he guessed brightly. "Everything's all right, then? I thought perhaps it was bad news, the missing women you two are looking for…"

Sherlock clapped him on the back. "Everything is fine," he said, with a smile that was aimed at John alone. "I was thinking that once we have played with this scene a little more we might try something that involves three players. I have a number of scenes from _Dream_ here, among others."

"Brilliant," Molly proclaimed. John grinned. "From the top, then, Sherlock?"

They reset; Sherlock made a show of adjusting his waistcoat and curls before stepping onto the stage proper and sinking gently onto one knee. _"My duty, madam,"_ he said, announcing himself, _"and most humble service."_

John found a rickety prop chair to one side of the stage and perched himself cautiously on one side of it to watch them. He wasn't sure if it was the conversation that he and Sherlock had just had, but the energy between the detective and his co-star seemed slightly different, more assured. There was a sort of confidence in the bend of his friend's neck that hadn't been there when John had first entered the Globe.

" _What is your name?"_ the younger actor replied, walking confidently up to the kneeling detective and tipping his chin upwards with one finger so that their eyes met.

Sherlock raised a cool eyebrow. _"Cesario is your servant's name, fair princess."_

Molly released his chin as if in surprise. " _My servant, sir!"_ he cried, holding his arms out to draw an audience reaction. _"Twas never merry world_  
Since lowly feigning was called compliment:  
You're servant to the Count Orsino, youth."

_"And he is yours,"_ Sherlock agreed with a deferent gesture. " _And his must needs be yours:  
Your servant's servant is your servant, madam."_

With a grunt of disgust, Molly spun on his heel and flapped an arm as if to dismiss the very idea of Orsino. John tried not to be offended. _"For him, I think not on him: for his thoughts,  
Would they were blanks, rather than fill'd with me!"_

Sherlock looked up sharply. _"Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts on his behalf,"_ he protested. His bent leg twitched slightly as though he wanted to rise but thought better of it.

Molly snorted. " _Oh, by your leave, I pray you,"_ he said, wildly and slightly hysterically.  
 _"I bade you never speak again of him:_  
But, would you undertake another suit,  
I had rather hear you to solicit that  
Than music from the spheres."

_"Dear lady,"_ Sherlock started reluctantly with an air of forced patience, but Molly turned frantically back to him and cut him off in an instant.

_"Give me leave, beseech you,"_ he pleaded, actually taking Sherlock's hand and kneeling in front of him until they were eye-to-eye. _"I did send,  
After the last enchantment you did here,  
A ring in chase of you: so did I abuse  
Myself, my servant and, I fear me, you:  
Under your hard construction must I sit,  
To force that on you, in a shameful cunning,  
Which you knew none of yours: what might you think?" _Anguished, Molly bent his head forwards until their foreheads touched, looking absolutely desperate until Sherlock leaned away slightly and broke the contact. Molly stared.  
 _"Have you not set mine honour at the stake  
And baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts  
That tyrannous heart can think?" _The younger actor launched himself to his feet once more, pacing frantically as though he couldn't decide whether he wanted to be close to Sherlock or as far away as possible. _"To one of your receiving_  
Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,  
Hideth my heart. So, let me hear you speak."

Sherlock was silent for a long moment, his inscrutable eyes following Molly's movements. Then he said quietly, _"I pity you."_

Molly turned to him hopefully. _"That's a degree to love,"_ he tried, reaching out a hand to caress the detective's dark curls.

_"No, not a grize;"_ the other man replied indignantly, again moving his head out of the way of questing fingers, _"for 'tis a vulgar proof,  
That very oft we pity enemies."_

The two of them let the beat stand for a moment, watching each other intently. Then Molly seemed to relent, his posture relaxing in defeat. He turned back to Sherlock with arms open in a false smile. _"Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again,"_ he said, his tone bordering on hysterical.  
 _"O, world, how apt the poor are to be proud!_  
If one should be a prey, how much the better  
To fall before the lion than the wolf!"

He looked up in surprise as if at a sudden noise; after staring into the distance a moment, Molly let his eyes fall until they rested on John. The boy threw him a cheeky smile. _"The clock upbraids me with the waste of time,"_ he said quietly, turning back to Sherlock. He sighed wistfully, reaching out a hand as though to stroke the older man's face but thinking better of it.  
 _"Be not afraid, good youth,"_ he continued, in the same almost uncannily quiet tone. _"I will not have you:_  
And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,  
Your were is alike to reap a proper man:  
There lies your way, due west." He made a sweeping gesture towards the main doors to the Globe, out past the audience.

Sherlock got to his feet hesitantly, as though fearing the younger boy would jump on him while he was unstable. When he was there safely, he grinned broadly. _"Then westward-ho!"_ he cried with almost sarcastic joviality. _"Grace and good disposition_  
Attend your ladyship!  
You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?"

"Master Holmes!"

John turned in shock to the small but urgent voice; both players copied the gesture in the corner of his eye, Sherlock's posture changing from diminutive to commanding in the space of the turn.

Two children were sprinting through the theatre, the smaller huffing with the effort of keeping up with the elder. John stood as he recognised Billy from their previous encounters, a much younger grubby blonde girl struggling not to fall behind him, her malnourished face bright red with effort.

"Billy," Sherlock said, sounding as surprised as John felt. He jumped lightly from the stage to greet the children, sinking to one knee to place them all on a level. John clambered down to stand beside his friend. "Are you all right?"

The children both doubled over to catch their breath; John noticed a distinct tilting of the little girl's head just in time to catch her before she fell over, wheezing. Once Billy had recovered a little, he looked up at them with his eyes more serious than John had ever seen them. "Master Holmes," he panted again. "We saw that boy again."

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow, sending a slightly worried glance in John's direction. Billy swallowed laboriously before gesturing at his companion. "This is Emilia," he introduced. "She was orphaned last year and we look after her now - she and Lizzie were watching the downtown trade streets an' they saw him."

Molly cleared his throat quietly. "Here," he said, holding out a mug of water to the children. John gave the boy a quick smile, which his friend returned, looking torn between concern and excitement at being involved.

Billy took a few sips before passing the mug back to the little girl. "Thank you, sir," he said politely as Emilia gulped it greedily. "Emilia ran to get me an' Lizzie followed the boy. I told 'er to wait back at the bridge for me when she knew where 'e went."

The detective took a surprisingly patient breath in. "Where did you see him, Emilia?" he asked kindly.

The blonde looked at Billy, looking frightened and uncertain. The older boy nodded encouragingly towards Sherlock. "The scary shop," the girl said, so quietly that even John struggled to hear her.

"Scary shop?" John repeated gently.

Emilia nodded so violently John worried she would hurt herself. "I din't want to go there but Lizzie said we 'ad to," she murmured. "She made me go real close to the door when that boy went in. She said I 'ad to hear what they was sayin', but I couldn't hear much, on'y the man sayin' it should be ready tomorrow an' it took long 'cause he wanted somethin' special."

Again, Sherlock took the time to breathe in and out before he asked the girl calmly, "Do you know what they sell at the scary shop, Emilia?"

The girl shivered. "Boxes," she said. "Big boxes. They put people inside an' then take 'em away."

John felt his stomach fall through his knees; Molly made a tiny squeaking noise. Sherlock glanced at him before turning to Billy for confirmation, looking shaken. "Coffins," he confirmed. "They were at the undertaker's?"

Billy nodded. "None of the other shops on the street they were watching make any kind of boxes."

John clutched the little girl tighter, sharing a worried look with the detective. "But that means -"

"Yes," Sherlock confirmed, propelling himself to his feet ready for action. "Both women could be dead and buried by tomorrow."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay once again! I'm well and truly settled down now and getting into a routine - I've started finishing work early enough to be able to go sit somewhere outside and write, which is so nice. It's so strange to think I'm now living pretty much exactly the life I've dreamed of since I was about twelve. Anyway. Starting to get exciting now I hope - next chapter, whole-cast rehearsal of Twelfth Night! Thanks to everyone who keeps commenting, I honestly can't express how happy that makes me.

_"Yes," Sherlock pronounced dramatically. "Both women could be dead and buried by tomorrow."_

John and Sherlock looked at each other for a moment, considering; the detective looked as though he were about to vibrate out of his skin with a mixture of panic and excitement, but he glanced at the two children and Molly with his lower lip caught between his teeth. The young actor looked at the two of them, looking like he couldn't decide whether he ought to look worried or excited at being involved.

Then Emilia sniffled a little and wriggled a little closer to him, and Molly looked down at her with a tiny smile creeping across his face. "I'll stay here and look after Emilia," he offered quietly. "You can't drag her all the way back down to the undertaker's. She can stay here until we're set to start tonight, and you two will be back by then, won't you?"

Sherlock glanced at John; this evening was the first whole-company rehearsal for _Twelfth Night_ , and John knew without a doubt that Will would murder him if the two of them were late. On the other hand, two women's _lives_ were at stake. A sort of thrill went through him. Sherlock nodded, giving no indication he'd noticed the tiny frisson of excitement his friend had experienced at the urgency of the situation. "All right," he said shortly, burying his hands in his pockets. "Thank you, Molly. I'm certain we'll be able to hand over to the Constabulary before rehearsal, and Billy can take Emilia back from there."

Molly nodded. "Go," he insisted, wrapping both arms around the little girl.

"Thank you," John said, since the detective was already on his way out of the theatre, Billy trailing a few steps behind him.

They must have set some sort of on-foot record for getting across inner London; as soon as the shabby once-black overhead of the undertaker's came into view Sherlock stopped them abruptly, holding one hand out to halt Billy in his tracks. "Billy," he said, bending slightly to look him in the eyes. "Where did you tell Lizzie to meet you once she'd tailed Peters?"

"Back at the house," Billy said.

Sherlock nodded; John wondered for the first time where Billy and his gang actually lived. "Go and find Constable Lestrade," he ordered. "Tell him to meet us at the house. He can bring Donovan if he must. By the time you get there we ought to be back as well. "

The boy nodded seriously and took off. John frowned after him. "Is it okay for Lestrade to know where they live?" he asked his friend. "I mean - can't he arrest them, or something? If they're just living in an abandoned house?"

"He could, technically," Sherlock said unconcernedly. "But I suppose the one benefit of the informality of the Constabulary falls on the homeless. There are a few of them who run around arresting everyone they see just to show off the power, but most Constables are like Lestrade - they just want to do good for someone. They don't get paid enough to do things like throw homeless children out of abandoned houses."

John smiled thoughtfully, watching the small boy round the corner eagerly. He wondered yet again how easy it would have been for someone with Sherlock's gifts and disposition to shut himself off from the world, use his mind to study and further his own knowledge without ever giving back at all, to shun ordinary people as inferior. But Sherlock surrounded himself with decent people like Lestrade and Molly and Billy, people who were kinder than they had to be and strove to help people in the same way Sherlock himself did. "You're extraordinary," he commented idly.

"John, please," the detective replied dryly. "We are about to interrogate an undertaker about an assassin, contain yourself."

They both chuckled, but John didn't miss the tiny pleased flush on the detective's razor-sharp cheekbones.

The undertaker was a grubby little man with a round, bald head and startlingly blue eyes; he blinked at them from behind the counter as Sherlock flung open the shop door with his usual dramatism. For a moment it looked as though he had been struck dumb; then his face rearranged itself into an obsequious smile as he took in the richness of Sherlock's dress. "How can I help you, gentlemen?" he asked slimily.

Sherlock gave John a wry grin. "I represent Her Majesty's Government," he pronounced to the undertaker, striding forwards until his hand hovered over the counter. "I need some information about a custom coffin you are building."

At once the little man went from grovelling to disdainful. "Do you have proof?" he asked stubbornly.

The detective frowned. "You know which one I'm talking about," he deduced. "In this location you must have hundreds of clients, but straight away you know which one I was asking about. Which means you're not surprised the Government's asking about it. How much is he paying you to keep it quiet?"

The undertaker folded his arms defiantly. "I want to see proof you're from the Government," he repeated.

John had asked Sherlock after the jewellers whether he had authority to speak on Mycroft's behalf, whether if the jeweller had been a little more suspicious and a little less keen on a reward he would have been able to offer some kind of proof of Mycroft's trust. Sherlock had laughed at him. It was becoming increasingly difficult not to show just the tiniest hint of righteousness.

"I want to know the specifications," Sherlock insisted. "I already know who the client is and where they live, I'm not asking you to turn them in. All I want to know is what you're building for them."

But the shopkeeper only smiled nastily at them. "He said you'd say that."

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow. "Who did?" he asked.

"Even _if_ you already know who they are I'm still not telling you," the undertaker said scathingly. "Not until I see an official document from Her Majesty's Government."

The detective snorted, his eyes flicking quickly around the room. "You couldn't read an official document, we both know it wouldn't mean anything," he concluded.

"I can recognise Her Majesty's seal," the man argued. He folded his arms across his barrel chest with an air of finality. John watched as Sherlock's grey-green eyes narrowed, calculations whizzing behind his eyes almost too fast for John to keep track.

"Fine," Sherlock snapped. "If either of these ladies die, then on your head be it."

The undertaker's smile faltered for a split second, but he hitched it up surprisingly fast, holding Sherlock's gaze. The two of them stared each other down for a moment, John glancing from one to the other and trying not to think about the fact that the intense, challenging look on the detective's face was actually making his heart beat faster. Then Sherlock grunted and spun on his heel, John having enough experience of his friend's dramatism to follow him out of the tiny shop, for all the world as though he knew exactly what was going on.

Sherlock turned right outside the undertaker's, briskly making his way in the opposite direction from where they had come; John was opening his mouth to ask why when just as suddenly he stopped, growled in abject frustration, and kicked the support beams of the neighbouring shop so hard John could have sworn he heard toes breaking.

"Whoa," he said, glancing behind them in case the undertaker had followed them. "Sherlock, don't hurt yourself, it's not the end of the world."

The detective gave him such a withering look John marvelled for a moment that his eyes didn't shrivel in their sockets. "We could have got _everything_ we needed to know without letting Peters know we're right behind them," Sherlock snarled, leaning against the shop front to shake out his injured foot. "Why do people like that have to be so _stubborn!"_

John looked at him. "Yes," he said dryly, images of his friend's more stubborn moments flashing in front of his eyes. "I can't imagine how frustrating that must be."

Not fooled by his sarcasm, Sherlock raised a dismissive eyebrow at John before snorting in defeat. "Oh well," he admitted with a sigh. "We know where Peters lives by now, we didn't exactly _need_ the specifications from him. It would only have made the next step a lot simpler."

"I suppose after we find the coffin ourselves we can have him in for obstructing the course of justice," John suggested, trying not to smile as the detective carried on walking with a distinct limp. "Want me to take a look at that foot?"

Sherlock didn't look impressed. "It's fine, I haven't broken anything," he said, somewhat lessening the impact of the statement by wincing on his next step. John chuckled. "I'm certain Lizzie will be back at the house by now, hopefully by the time we get there Billy and our dear Constable Lestrade will be there as well."

John nodded. "Good," he said shortly. "So what's our plan once we find Peters? Even Constables can't just barge in and search someone's house."

"It's too much to hope that Peters won't be aware of that," Sherlock agreed. "Our best course of action is to let him know we know, surround the house so they can't do anything when the coffin arrives until we can get Mycroft to sign a search paper."

They continued walking in silence for a moment, Sherlock clearly deep in thought. "What are you actually expecting to _find_ at Peters' house?" John asked after that grew tiring.

"I don't know, but they must be keeping Lady Brackenstall somewhere," Sherlock replied thoughtfully. "Once we have people watching the house, if she's not there herself it should be simple to follow him to wherever he is keeping her."

John frowned. "Just Lady Brackenstall? You don't think he's keeping Lady Carfax at the same place?"

The great detective shook his head slowly. "I'm still not certain he is keeping Lady Carfax," he mused. "The key to Carfax lies with our old friend Captain Crocker, I'm sure of it. But every time I try to look into him I run into dead ends."

"That must be frustrating," John said, trying to suppress a smile and failing.

For once, Sherlock seemed to miss the joke. "The worst part is I _know_ I've seen him somewhere before and I still can't place him," he said, one hand clenching into a fist in frustration. John thought he could understand how painful it would be for Sherlock with his incredible pride in his mind to lose a piece of information so vital.

"You know it's possible you passed him in the street once," John tried to placate him.

Sherlock snorted derisively. "I'm certain I'd remember that," he deferred. "He was in disguise, and most likely because he knew I would recognise him out of it." He stopped in front of a house, just as nondescript but well-maintained as the rest of the street. "That trace of Scottish accent is important somehow, I know it," Sherlock maintained as he scraped off the bottom of his shoes on the elevated doorstep. "Everything keeps coming back to that."

John looked around in surprise. " _This_ is the house?"

The detective gave him a sceptical look. "What did you expect, a half-collapsed hovel filled with rats? Just because they're orphans doesn't mean they can't maintain the house."

"I expected something in a less wealthy part of town, not something the children had let rot," John tried to defend. "How did they get this house in the first place? This neighbourhood costs more than I've earned in my entire life."

Sherlock smirked. "The last owner was one of my first clients," he said. "He left the country ten years ago when I found his son living in Italy. I told you before, John, even though I don't ask for payment people like giving me things."

John blinked as the door swung open on a skinny redhead girl. "You _own_ this house?"

"'Zounds, no," Sherlock dismissed, grinning at the girl. "He still technically owns it, and I'm certain if he ever came back to England he would reclaim it. Luckily, I'm also certain he'll never come back. Good morning, Elizabeth," he changed tack brightly, clapping his hands together in what seemed like pure joy. "I trust you have good news for me?"

The redhead grinned back. "I got him, Master Holmes," she affirmed. "His wife opened the door and all. Neither of them saw me."

Sherlock laughed aloud. "Oh, I knew I made the right choice with you. Is Lestrade here?"

Elizabeth's grin softened into a fond sort of smile. "He's in the kitchen."

Constable Lestrade stopped mid-run when they entered the spacious kitchen and was immediately knocked almost to the floor by a number of smaller children, giggling and shrieking with joy. John couldn't suppress a chuckle at the scene; even Donovan was laughing, her curls falling across her face as she caught the little girl running at her and lifted her onto her hip. Sherlock raised a dispassionate eyebrow at them. "Ready?" he asked, a touch of dry amusement colouring his voice. Lestrade stood up, leaving his hand clasped in both of a small boy's. "The undertaker was irritatingly stiff-lipped, so we have no choice but to smoke them out."

John smiled at Donovan as she put down the child she was holding. He didn't miss the piles of fresh vegetables on the kitchen counter; he wondered how often the two of them visited this house and, not for the first time, what it was that Lestrade actually _did_ besides the Constabulary to be able to feed a house full of orphans _and_ look after Donovan. "All right," the burly man said. "Let's get going. I'll see you next week, guys."

The children began to make noises of protest; before anyone could be overwhelmed by it, however, Sherlock raised his fingers to his lips and barked out a sharp, piercing whistle. Instantly, even the smallest of children fell into a sharp line at military attention. Lestrade looked over the top of them to meet John's surprised look with amused resignation. "All right," the detective said, beginning a critical pace down the line like a drill sergeant. "Wiggins, I am implementing a round-the-clock surveillance operation on the house Lizzie and Billy are about to take us to. You are in charge of drawing up a shift pattern, I expect it to be completed and water-tight when we return."

The tallest boy at the end of the line nodded sharply. "Yes, Master Holmes," he said.

John watched in some amusement as the detective continued to bark out orders to the children, all of whom were staring at him with naked adoration. How had he ever thought Sherlock seemed unfeeling? He was practically given a house that cost more than John could ever dream of owning and he was still living in an inn out of a friend's pocket so that a group of homeless children could be safe.

They left Donovan once again engaged in some kind of cat-and-mouse chase game with the younger children to cross town - one toddler in particular had seemed intent on not letting her out of the door. Lestrade was still chuckling about it halfway across town. "It's nice to see her let go," he admitted finally. "She has to keep herself so tightly wound all the time, so defensive. I understand why she does it but it's difficult to live with sometimes. Seeing her with those children reminds me why I chose to work with her in the first place."

Sherlock snorted, an almost bitter expression on his face. Lestrade rolled his eyes impatiently. "You _know_ why she does it, Sherlock, you might cut her a bit of slack every now and again."

The detective raised an eyebrow dismissively. "If she used her brain as much as she used her voice perhaps I would."

John thought it was a bit rich of Sherlock to criticise anyone who liked the sound of their own voice; he glanced at Lestrade with a wry grin and was gratified to see that despite the veil of irritation at the insults to his assistant the Constable was smiling slightly. He wondered how rude it would be if he asked the older man about Donovan; there were a lot of strange things in London in the new century, but the strangely wealthy Constable and his outspoken, mixed-race assistant were one of the strangest he had seen so far.

Sherlock stopped them when Billy indicated they had reached the street, cutting himself off in the middle of another biting insult to Lestrade. "Billy, Elizabeth, you two wait one on each side of the street. Make sure you're not visible from the door."

The two children nodded obediently and took off, flitting from doorway to alleyway and somehow managing to keep out of the sight of the door they had pointed out as being Peters'; Sherlock watched them go with a satisfied smile on his face. John guessed that the detective had spent some time teaching them how to move without being observed. Once each child was settled - Billy sitting in a side-alley flicking pennies through the dirt like he had been there for half his life and Lizzie tucked so tightly against the side of a house that each time John looked away and back again his eyes slid right over her - Sherlock nodded sharply. "All right," he summarised. "Everybody ready?"

John wasn't; he'd never spoken to anyone before that he _knew_ was a murderer by trade, and he wasn't entirely sure that it was sensible for him to be there. It had been seventeen years since he returned from the army, and while he enjoyed the rush of chasing thieves through the streets at night and baring his soul in front of nobility on stage, it had been a long time since he'd been in a situation that required such controlled adrenaline. He wasn't sure how he would react if something started to go wrong. Sherlock was the brains of the outfit, the Constable was the authority - John couldn't help but feel surplus somehow, a nosy bystander drawn in deeper than he could handle. Lestrade was nodding, though, and Sherlock was looking at him for confirmation; so John squared his shoulders and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Ready," he agreed.

With a theatrical flick of his sleeves, Sherlock Holmes raised a long-fingered hand and knocked on the mercenary's door. For a moment, nothing happened; John wondered what they would do if there turned out to be nobody home. Then there was a scuffling sound, and a small, pale man cracked open the door.

The sight of Peters' thin face gave John pause; he wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but given the man's line of work the wiry, rat-faced man peering carefully around the door wasn't it. Were it not for the tattered mess of his left ear John might have thought they had the wrong house.

Sherlock, however, cracked a smile that failed to hide all the triumph and smugness buried beneath his alabaster face. "Reverend Slessinger," he greeted with just a hint of sarcasm.

The man shuffled uncomfortably, apparently unwilling to open his front door wider than the tiny crack necessary to show a sliver of his face. "Yes?" he confirmed tentatively, for all the world as though he had no idea why the three of them were knocking on his door.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," the Great Detective pronounced, "and this is Captain John Watson and Constable Gregory Lestrade."

It had been an incredibly long time since anyone had called him _Captain_ John Watson; the sound of it made him start slightly, automatically straightening his back. Suddenly he could feel his heartbeat in his ears as though it were being caused by someone else, feel the adrenaline coursing through his muscles with the cool certainty that his body would obey him if he told it to fight or flee. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his former fears evaporating. Discharged or not, he was Captain John Watson, and he hadn't been promoted that far for nothing. If things turned ugly in any way he would handle it because that was what he'd used to train for.

Peters did not open the door to them any further, instead shifting on his feet to lean against the doorframe and wedge his face more tightly into the gap. Sherlock smiled politely. "May we come in?" he asked, his voice sickly sweet.

The assassin shifted uncomfortably. "I'm afraid you've caught us at an awful time," he excused. "My wife's mother has passed away and we are in the midst of funeral arrangements. Can I ask what this is regarding?"

Sherlock opened his mouth, but Lestrade was quicker. "It's just a simple enquiry, Reverend," he assured him. "We're investigating the disappearance of Lady Margaret Brackenstall."

Peters raised an eyebrow. "I've never heard of her," he said blandly. "You may be able to tell from our location that we don't associate with many Ladies."

Lestrade's polite smile didn't waver, despite Sherlock's derisive snort. "Of course. We simply had reason to believe an undertaker's nearby was linked to her disappearance and we have been asking some questions of a number of their clients who requested… _unusual_ designs."

A flash of anger flooded Peters' face for an instant, but he was back in control before any of them could comment. Sherlock narrowed his eyes, but he seemed to be taking his lead from Lestrade and he kept quiet. "I had expected a certain amount of discretion from my undertaker," he said slowly. "We requested slightly larger dimensions than his standard for her coffin. If you had met my mother-in-law you would understand."

Lestrade humoured him with the hint of a laugh. "It's only routine at this point," he said reassuringly. "You understand our concern when a missing persons investigation leads us to an undertaker's."

"Of course," the sallow man agreed. "I hope you have more luck with his other clients."

"I'm afraid we're not finished, Reverend Slessinger," Lestrade said firmly, a hint of steel entering his voice. John raised an eyebrow; he'd never heard the Constable speak with such quiet authority before. Peters stopped from where he had begun to close the door. "If you would just allow Master Holmes and Captain Watson to conduct a preliminary search of your house? They will not disturb your belongings and any invasion of your family's privacy will be as minimal as they can make it."

Judging by the look on Sherlock's face as he subtly tried to crane his neck to see inside their house, John wouldn't have encouraged Peters to count on it. Whether or not the assassin believed him, Peters smiled awkwardly in dismissal. "As I said, Constable, this really isn't a good time - my wife is very distressed about her mother, I'm afraid I cannot allow you inside my house."

Lestrade nodded; Sherlock abandoned all pretence of subtlety and stood on his toes to try and see beyond him. "I'm afraid I do have to insist, Reverend," the Constable said, still with that dangerous steely note to his voice. "If you won't allow us to search your home freely we can come back with an official order."

Peters smiled, the politeness of the expression marred by a touch of triumph. John's heart sank. "I suggest you do that, then," he said calmly.

Sherlock, about to tip himself over straining to see into the house, suddenly froze. "Lestrade," he said sharply, sticking a hand out to grab John's arm so tightly he almost snapped it off. "The coffin is in there. It's on the table in the front room."

John's heart thumped painfully in his throat, a cold thrill travelling down his arms into his fingers, which twitched restlessly. "It was delivered this afternoon," Peters confirmed coolly. "My mother-in-law's funeral is tomorrow morning."

Lestrade looked uncomfortably frozen; in the time it would take them to get a search order, even if a Justice were able to grant it to them the moment they walked into the building, who knew what Peters could do with that coffin? John shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet in readiness, not sure what they could do but knowing they had to do _something_. "We will be back with a search order, Reverend," he said firmly, but the steely note was gone.

"Lestrade," Sherlock repeated urgently. "This is the only chance we'll get, if we don't get in there now we could be _killing_ Lady Brackenstall. _Damn_ official orders."

The Constable shrugged helplessly. "Sherlock, he's refused entry, I don't have the authority -"

"I don't care," Sherlock insisted, throwing his arms up in desperation. "A woman might _die_!"

John watched as Peters' satisfied smile grew, abandoning the pretence of contrition. He could feel his own pulse through every inch of his body, feel his muscles tensing and relaxing with the need to _do something._ "If you go in there, I can't get you out," Lestrade argued. "We've done everything we can, anything else and he can have you arrested."

For a moment Sherlock hesitated, and John thought he might relent; then he let out a sound of frustration. "I have to," he apologised, turning to Peters with determination. "Move out of my way or I will move you myself."

"Touch me and I will have you arrested," Peters replied coldly.

Before anyone could say anything more, Sherlock charged. John, poised on the point of readiness, was barely half a step behind him as he barrelled straight into the door and knocked the smaller man backwards. A woman screamed; distantly, he was aware of Lestrade apologising to Peters for the both of them, but he doubted the man was listening. Sherlock swiped him aside with one throw of his arm and made for the kitchen table, an unusually large coffin taking up its entire space and intruding over a once-velveted armchair.

Peters made for Sherlock, but John was quicker; he grabbed the mercenary's arm and swung him around, twisting the arm up behind his back and pinning him against the wall. Sherlock didn't seem to notice, far too focussed on prying the lid off the polished wooden box.

"Unhand me," Peters insisted, quite suddenly going from limp to fluid under John's hands. He redoubled his efforts, bringing a knee into the small of the other man's back; Peters was deceptively strong, his thin arms struggling in John's grip. It suddenly became less of a mystery why the Queen had hired this man to get rid of her problems. John took a step back and used his weight to his advantage, trapping him against the wall and pulling his arm until it hurt.

He was able to take his eyes off his opponent for just long enough to see Sherlock throw the lid off the coffin, almost cracking the wood as it hit the floor, and stare into its depths with a strangely blank expression. "Sherlock?" John called back to him, stamping on Peters' foot before it could make an upwards jaunt towards his crotch.

Sherlock looked back at him, crestfallen. "Let him go, John," he said quietly. "She's not here."

It took John a moment to process the news, and a moment after that to force himself to take a step backwards and let the assassin go. "What?" he said dumbly; he crossed the room to look inside, Peters doubling over and panting instead of carrying on the fight.

Inside the coffin was a corpulent old woman who had obviously been dead a few days; a strong smell of cleaning products wafted up from the box to cover up the underlying stench of the beginnings of decay. "It really is his mother-in-law," John muttered. Sherlock looked up at Peters, clearly unsure what to do, and then past him to Lestrade in the doorway.

"I'm so sorry," he said to the Constable, and he really looked it. "I miscalculated somehow. Lady Brackenstall isn't here."

Lestrade raised a resigned eyebrow, but even Peters knew the truth. They had well and truly blown it: there was no way a Justice of the Peace would let them near Peters again, even if they had the most solid evidence they could possibly get, and they were no closer to finding even one of the Ladies than they had been that morning.

The assassin straightened his clothing firmly, a broad smile growing on his thin face. "If you've quite finished, Master Holmes," he said calmly, "I'd like you to leave now."


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, so sorry. But hopefully if anyone is still reading after almost 18 months, you'll be reassured that I still very much intend to finish this. This chapter was just an absolute bitch to write.
> 
> If you're not familiar with _Twelfth Night_ , I would recommend you read a summary before reading this chapter. I mean, I'd recommend you read the whole play because it's fantastic, but definitely at least a summary. There's a good one on bardweb.net. In terms of glossary, I will have a look through and post one if there's anything people might need explaining this week, but right now I am so triumphant at having finished this chapter I need to post it now.

John stared down at the decomposing woman, feeling sick. Behind him he could hear Lestrade dully attempting to smooth things over for them.

"I'm so sorry, Reverend," he was saying. "Another Constable will be around to take an impartial report later today and we would absolutely understand if you would like to press charges."

His stomach clenched unpleasantly at the half-smug, half-sympathetic tone of the assassin's voice, far too calm for a man who had just been forcibly pinned against his own living-room wall. "Thank you, Constable," he said calmly. "I do appreciate the urgency of a missing persons case and I understand why you would be suspicious of a man with a custom-built coffin in his living room, but I do think your colleagues could have handled the situation without assaulting me."

Sherlock's knuckles whitened on the lip of the coffin; John grimaced up at him, watching his upper lip curl in frustration. "I am so sorry, Reverend Slessinger," the detective forced out, barely managing to look contrite as he turned to his accidental victim. Peters' smile widened. "We won't disturb you again. John," he summoned, the picture of defeat. John gave one last lingering look at the woman in the coffin, trying desperately to find something,  _anything_ , that would suggest it was one of the Ladies in disguise - but if Sherlock Holmes, surely looking just as hard, could not find anything, then what hope did John have?

Peters stayed in his doorway until they were right at the end of the street; Sherlock paused for one last look back, and the mercenary actually smirked at him before closing the front door.

Both children darted out from their hiding places and made a dash for them. Sherlock's shoulders slumped visibly. "What happened?" Billy asked, panting. "Was something wrong?"

Lestrade smiled sadly. "She wasn't there," he explained. Billy looked up at Sherlock, who avoided his gaze in something that was almost shame. "We'll send someone else later this afternoon, but it's unlikely he's keeping her elsewhere. I've no doubt he was involved with the kidnappings at some stage, but we can't prove it if he's not currently in possession of either of them."

Sherlock snorted, but he said nothing. He seemed completely shocked by what had happened, almost entirely unresponsive. Lizzie looked genuinely concerned as she stared adoringly up at him, but John noticed she didn't look particularly surprised. He wondered how often Sherlock was badly wrong, and whether he always reacted like this.

He'd probably never assaulted anyone before. That one was on John.

"You two should still stick around," Lestrade told the children, his surprising composure throwing Sherlock's sulk into sharp relief. "We didn't get to look at the rest of his house, it's still worth keeping an eye on them -"

"If she wasn't in that coffin she wasn't in the house," Sherlock interrupted. He glanced down at the children, both looking up at him like baby birds look at their mother, and managed half a smile. "We do need to know if they leave the house though, it would be beneficial if the two of you could stay here. If one of them leaves without the other, Billy follow the leaver and Elizabeth stay with the other. I'll be at Angelo's all afternoon if anything significant happens."

It took John a moment to realise what was wrong with that statement. "Wait, you're going back to Angelo's?" he asked, grabbing the detective's sleeve and halting them. "We're supposed to be at the Globe in an hour and a half."

Sherlock gave him a stern look. "John, given what's just happened you can't honestly expect me to spend time at the  _theatre_."

John raised an eyebrow. "That's exactly what I expect," he retorted. "Will is  _counting_ on you, it's the first whole-company rehearsal and you want us to do it without the main character?" Sherlock only frowned unconcernedly. "He'll kill you," John mused, trying desperately to think of an angle that would work and knowing that one wasn't it. "Sherlock, you need to get it out of your mind. Throw yourself into something else and then let this sort itself out in the back of your mind."

The detective tipped his head to one side, clearly considering it. "Perhaps you're right," he mused.

Lestrade chuckled. "Of course he's right," he chipped in. "You know you're too emotionally invested in this to think properly about what you might have missed. When you act you don't think about anything else, then once you're finished you can pick it apart properly without feeling quite so responsible."

Sherlock grimaced at Lestrade's implication that he  _should_  feel awful about what had happened. John shared a downcast glance with him; as much as he didn't want to upset Will, especially not now, it wasn't going to be easy putting all of this out of his mind to pretend to be Duke of an island whose only worry was being in love with someone who didn't love him back.

He took Sherlock's hand for a moment, squeezed it, then let it go. Sherlock started, but his fingers clutched tightly at John's in the moment before they released each other. Lestrade eyed the two of them with interest.

"We will be at the Globe for the rest of the afternoon if anything happens," Sherlock corrected himself.

Billy grinned. "Got it," he said brightly. "We'll be here."

Sherlock nodded with the barest suggestion of a smile. "Good," he pronounced.

They walked in a happier silence for a few moments, then Lestrade sighed. "I suppose I should report back to Mycroft," the Constable said tentatively. John wondered if he was imagining the distinct lessening of enthusiasm since the last time they had spoken of the elder Holmes.

Sherlock swallowed awkwardly; he actually looked a little scared at the prospect of his elder brother finding out what he had just done. Lestrade clapped him awkwardly on the shoulder. "I meant to let him know we found Peters but can't connect him to anything. Telling him exactly how we established that won't help anyone."

John supposed once Mycroft knew what they had done the Justices would have to get involved, despite the Constabulary's best efforts to sweep it under the rug. Sherlock's shoulders slumped again. "Yes, I suppose you'd better," he said resignedly. "He'll want to bring Peters in, but it won't help."

"I'll be sure to let him know," Lestrade commented dryly. "He knows we're still watching the house, surely he can't think taking him out of the house will help." Sherlock lifted a doubtful eyebrow but did not comment. "Is it the first rehearsal for the new play, then?" the man diverted brightly.

Sherlock grinned. "Yes - there are many elements I am eager to see Master Shakespeare's vision for. The only element I have focussed on so far in our own rehearsals has been the love triangle between Viola, Olivia and Orsino. The final scene in particular where all characters unite should be interesting to workshop."

"Did you manage to suggest anyone to Will for Sebastian?" John remembered.

The detective grinned. "Ah, yes," he said. "A young actor I've worked with before. What he lacks in technique he makes up with enthusiasm and I think the role would be a fantastic way to develop his technique."

John hid a smile - being cast in the role after Sherlock likely meant that this young actor would have to spend a remarkable amount of time shadowing the detective and copying his mannerisms, essentially following Sherlock's every move. Of course the detective counted that as an opportunity to learn how to act properly. "Will's favourite sort of actor," he commented. "Someone young and keen that he can shape to his design."

Sherlock snorted; John watched as his body seemed to unfold as his tension released. "He seems to like us just fine," he said wryly.

"I was young and keen once," John mused. Sherlock did not respond.

Ben was still at the theatre when they arrived but Emilia was long gone; the boy was in mid-flow on the stage surrounded by the rest of the company, Will bouncing on the balls of his feet and mouthing the lines along with him. The playwright turned at the sound of the ground doors opening, a mixture of relief and disapproval on his face. John hadn't bothered to check how long ago he had asked them to be there.

"You're late," Will murmured as he walked past.

John grimaced. "Sorry," he said. "Sherlock's stuff."

The playwright did not look surprised. "Molly said you might not be back. When I got here he was drip-feeding a little girl out of his own cup, he said someone's life was on the line and the two of you rushed off." He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Everything ok?"

"Not really," John sighed. "We didn't save the life, and we… just be gentle with Sherlock."

Will nodded shortly and clapped John on the shoulder in sympathy; however, he knew him well enough to bounce back into the circle around Molly without further comment. "Okay," he said brightly. "Now that we're all here, let's start with a complete run-through. Start to finish, I won't stop anyone. Then we can discuss things that come up and talk about adjusting a few things to enhance any different ideas." He grinned around at them, practically shaking out of his skin with excitement. "I know some of you have been rehearsing on your own and I must say I'm excited to see what you've come up with."

Eyes turned to John and Sherlock; he guessed that either Will or Ben would have mentioned that they had been working together. He glanced up at his best friend, who was grinning at Ben in amused resignation.

Will snorted at them. "All right everyone, act one scene one, when you're ready."

The Company burst into action, flooding the stage and bustling around in an approximation of business until John could take place at the centre of it, lift his arms slowly and begin.

_"If music be the food of love, play on;  
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,_

_Th' appetite may sicken and so die.  
That strain again! It had a dying fall:  
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound  
That breathes upon a bank of violets,  
Stealing and giving odour! Enough: no more,  
Tis not so sweet now as it was before.  
O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou,  
That, notwithstanding thy capacity  
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,  
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,  
But falls into abatement and low price,  
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy  
That it alone is high fantastical."_

He ended the speech at the front of the stage, a hand raised in wistful contemplation, having lifted and fell with the wavering thought of the monologue. He noticed the other players rolling their eyes behind his back, as though their lord often went off in long rants about how fickle the obsession with love turned out to be. He couldn't help but turn his eyes to the side of the stage where Sherlock stood; the detective lifted his eyes from his cue-script to meet his own and smiled slightly, the very picture of perfection. John's stomach fluttered and he felt like blushing, like Orsino's blind, obsessive love was dragging him into its spell for the first time all over again.

_"Will you go hunt, my Lord?"_ a player ventured at last, stepping up and holding out his hands as though holding a sword or a bow.

John raised an eyebrow at him.  _"What, Curio?"_ he asked impatiently. He understood how nothing else, no hobbies or pursuits seemed nearly as interesting as talking about his imagined lover. What could he possibly hunt that would bring him the same joy as Sherlock's shy smile?

The older actor recoiled slightly.  _"The hart,"_ he suggested, seeming to realise the double meaning of his words as soon as they left his mouth and slumping in regret for bringing up the topic again. Will let out a bark of laughter from the front of the stage.

_"Why, so do I, the noblest that I have,"_ John replied eagerly, jumping at the chance.  
" _O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,  
Methought she purged the air of pestilence!  
That instance was I turn'd into a hart,  
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,  
E'er did since pursue me."_

If he thought about it - and admittedly he had been trying not to - his feelings for Sherlock had come upon him so suddenly and so strong as Orsino's for Olivia. He had always thought that there were two kinds of love: the kind that lasted was the kind that started slowly, with conversations and interests, like Will had built his marriage on. The kind he always seemed to end up in seemed to burn out as quickly as it begun, a blaze of passion and obsession that faltered once he actually grew to know the person. If Orsino had ever married Olivia John had no doubt he would have fallen out of love with her within months: this joy was a hunt in itself, and once he had caught her the hunt was over and so the joy with it. It reminded him of his fleeting interest in Molly - he knew very well that if the youth ever showed the slightest interest in him he would never allow either of them to act on it. It was love for the  _idea_  of being in love, rather than love for the boy himself. His past with Will had been like that a bit: so many days and nights spent so close keeping his longing for the other youth to himself for fear of rejection that once it had been realised it was over within a few short months as they each moved on to new interests.

The playwright did not comment as they moved from the first scene into the second, the players who had busied themselves as courtiers smoothly transitioning into sailors or drowned men lying heavily about the stage. Sherlock stood on a stool that had been left onstage from the previous afternoon's performance, gazing without interest into the audience. John marvelled once again how the transition from  _Sherlock_  into  _Viola_ was so gradual, so that he could not pinpoint the moment it had begun or ended but the man - the  _woman_ , really - standing on stage before him was barely anything at all of the great detective.

He listened to Viola's opening exchange with the sailor without paying it more attention than an admiration of the smooth femininity of his friend, focusing instead on his next scene. He had devoted so much thought to rehearsing with Sherlock and the complexities of how Orsino could be played that he had barely remembered that Will had asked him to play Sir Toby Belch as well. He looked up at the other players busily preparing themselves for the next scene and caught the eye of Mike Stamford, who had been in the company almost as long as John himself, testing out a rather petulant gesture with his round cheeks already red with effort, and smiled guiltily. Stamford grinned at him.

John watched Sherlock set the scene for them with mounting apprehension, but he wasn't the only person with script in hand when he waddled back on the stage, assuming weight and drunkenness with the first step of the swagger.

_"What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life."_

He saw Sherlock flinch in the corner of his eye at the line, but he didn't have space in his mind to wonder why the line had struck a chord with him as their Maria slapped him scoldingly in the arm with his own script.  _"By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours."_

John blundered his way through the scene: he needed to speak to Will about how obvious he wanted the doubling to be. It had seemed like the playwright had simply handed him the extra role for something to do and to save him hiring another actor, and yet when he was playing the part there were a number of similarities, not particularly in Toby's character and Orsino's, but certainly in the way other characters reacted to them. He tried to play the two characters as distinctly as possible and trust that Will would tell him that was the intent.

Once Mike Stamford rolled onto the stage as Andrew Aguecheek, though, John was instantly more comfortable: playing a drunkard with Stamford was something John did not have to imagine. He had neglected the man of late, but they had spent enough late nights in the Elephant for John to laugh at Sir Andrew's clumsy and misguided attempts to woo Maria with far too much experience of the two of them tripping over women's skirts they had just failed to impress. John was quite enjoying the drunken puns of their back-and-forth by the time it was over, and Sherlock was touching his arm with an amused smile to prepare for their first scene together.

The detective strode onto the stage first, flanked by one of Orsino's attendants.  _"If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,"_ he was saying,  _"you are like to be much advanc'd; he hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger."_

The detective frowned at him, his tone defensive.  _"You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir, in his favours?"_ He sounded genuinely fearful, as though worried that the affection he had experienced for the past few days may be simply a phase, only bestowed upon him because he was the most new and interesting thing in the Duke's life.

" _No, believe me,"_ the player - a regular with the Lord Chamberlain's Men, although not someone that Will retained permanently - said petulantly. John had seen him leading in a production with the Admiral's Men a few months ago and wondered sometimes why he kept coming back to the relatively minor roles that Will offered him. Sherlock smiled.

_"I thank you,"_ he said, patting the man on his shoulder. John took a deep breath and swept onto the stage flanked by the men that John was becoming certain Will had hired for this play specifically to follow him around. Sherlock jumped at the sight of him _. "Here comes the Count."_

John gave him an indulgent smile.  _"Who saw Cesario, ho!"_ he called, holding out his arms and delighting a little when the detective obediently trotted over to him.

_"On your attendance, my lord, here,"_ Sherlock replied, clasping the hand John had reached out to him fondly. His friend sighed at the contact, as though without it he had been in pain which was instantly relieved by John's touch.

They stood for a moment, hands clasped in front of them. John smiled slowly.  _"Stand you awhile aloof, Cesario,"_ he said, dropping their hands with an air of great reluctance.  
 _"Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd  
To thee the book even of my secret soul." _He allowed Sherlock to give a wistful smile at this, returning it with an indulgent expression. He lifted a hand as if to stroke the velveteen curls, allowing the longing to do so show plainly on his face. Sherlock leaned almost unconsciously into the imagined touch. Then John took a deep breath, breaking the spell like swiping a hand through cobweb.  
 _"Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her,  
Be not denied access, stand at her doors,  
And tell her there thy fixed foot shall grow  
Till thou have audience."_

Sherlock slumped in disappointment and relief.  _"Sure, my noble lord,  
If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow,  
As it is spoke, she never will admit me," _he protested, squirming in discomfort.

John waved him away airily.  _"Be clamorous,"_ he insisted,  _"and leap all civil bounds,  
Rather than make unprofited return."_

The detective drew in a slow breath and left the reluctant pause so long John would have worried that any other actor had forgotten the line.  _"Say I do speak with her, my lord,"_ he relented finally, letting out his breath with forced composure,  _"what then?"_

_"O, then unfold the passion of my love,  
Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith!" _John turned a critical eye on his friend, stepping back to take him in from head to toe and nod approvingly.  
 _"It shall become thee well to act my woes,"_ he concluded.  
 _"She will attend it better in thy youth  
Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect."_

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably.  _"I think not so, my lord,"_ he said.

_"Dear lad, believe it,"_ John insisted, closing the gap to take the detective's chin in his hand and tilt it upwards for the audience's appraisal.  _  
"For they shall yet belie thy happy years  
That say thou art a man: Diana's lip  
Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe  
Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,  
And all is semblative a woman's part." _He reached and adoringly stroked a hand across each part of the man as it was mentioned; his lips, bending as John's finger parted them, opening as John's opened as if in anticipation of meeting; his pale throat stretched taut with tension; one hand dropping with John's eyes to cast a suggestive look lower -

"John!"

Sniggers erupted from the watching cast at Will's indignant shout. Sherlock relaxed as John dropped his hands, a wry smile breaking across his face. "Sorry," John chuckled. "Just trying something."

Will raised a coy eyebrow. "It didn't work," he confirmed. "It's rare you will hear me eschew a phallic joke, but in this scene we should be wound so tight with tension I want to hear bones snapping in the audience. No crude humour."

"All right," John agreed defensively, raising his hands in surrender. Sherlock grinned and shook his hair back from his face to place his chin back into John's waiting grip.

_"…And all is semblative a woman's part,"_ John resumed.  
 _"I know thy constellation is right apt  
For this affair." _He looked around to the room at large, forgetting until that moment that there were meant to be other people in the scene. They seemed to have forgotten as well, all standing lax about the stage watching the two of them dance around each other.  _"Some four or five attend him -  
All, if you will, for I myself am best  
When least in company. Prosper well in this,  
And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord  
To call his fortunes thine."_

Sherlock held his eyes for a long moment, as though hoping for something more. Then he nodded softly.  _"I'll do my best  
To woo your lady," _he agreed. John nodded abruptly and let him go, stepping out of the circle they had created around themselves to face the other players on the stage. Sherlock stepped quickly to the edge of the stage and stared wistfully up to the balconies.  _"Yet, a barful strife!"_ he admitted.  
 _"Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife."_

They held the picture for the barest of moments before beginning to exeunt, the next scene already sweeping on behind them. Their Maria, in the lead, spoke with a tone of sharp command, somehow managing to seem like a bustling handmaiden without the traditional padding he would assume in performance; his follower, who had thrown a jester's hat atop his sandy hair, grinning and somehow managing to lean on thin air as though it were a wall. Will Kemp always wore the hat even in the earliest of rehearsals; John and Will used to speculate that he carried it in his pocket anywhere he went just in case people mistook him for someone serious.

_"Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of thy excuse; my lady will hang thee for thy absence."_

"All right, stop there for a moment," Will interjected. The boy dropped his scolding finger abruptly. "I know I said I wouldn't stop you, I'm sorry -"

"We all knew it wouldn't last, Will," the jester stated bluntly.

"Shut it, Kemp," Will threw back. "I won't make you redo anything, I just wanted to interject - I know you were interrupted by John's bad joke, but the end of that scene was a bit lacking. It needs to be… the  _tension_ needs to be higher. I appreciated the way you touched him, John, but you need to be so physically close to each other that everyone else,  _including_ the audience, is a little uncomfortable about it. I know everyone else onstage was focussed on what John and Sherlock were doing but you need to be reacting as well, and that's the reaction I need. Awkward glances at each other and at the audience - think, does Orsino act like this often? What does that say about how this is playing out? Have you seen it before, do you know how it ends? And then  _you_ lot," he rounded on Kemp and his scenemate, who cringed a little. "Your entrance breaks their tension. But after we've just wound the audience  _that_ tight we can't just snap it, it needs to be a slow awakening. Let them get their breath back after holding it for most of the last scene. Let them sort out the sexual crises they're having trying to figure out whether what they just saw was homosexual or not, whether they're aroused or uncomfortable or disgusted. By the time they realise that it's all of those at once, when the scene starts properly,  _then_ it's the time for crude genitalia references."

Will Kemp made an obscene gesture and Shakespeare nodded sharply. "Yes, like that, Master Kemp, thank you," he dismissed. He looked around the company, inviting questions. "Is that ok with everyone?" he checked. There was a collective murmur of agreement and nods. "Good. From the top of scene five, and I'll try not to interrupt again."

True to his word, Will didn't interrupt for the whole of the next scene, even as it came to Molly's first entrance as Olivia and his own as Malvolio. It had been a while since John had watched his best friend act; he'd forgotten the joy that Will brought to the stage, the sheer manic energy, even playing a character with so little energy of his own so early on.

"He doesn't usually act, does he?" Sherlock commented quietly from beside him, one hand reaching out a little to bump against John's in what could only have been a deliberate gesture of affection.

He shrugged, lifting his fingers to meet the gesture. "He hasn't in the last few projects," he admitted. "But he started out that way, same as the rest of us, and I think he finds it refreshing to play his own work."

Sherlock snorted a little. John was flooded once again with a rush of affection for his friend, not the first since the night before, and turned to him to say something about it when he heard  _Sir Toby Belch_ called from the stage and remembered he was due back on. He scrambled to remember his cue instead, shooting the detective an apologetic smile as he swaggered back on stage.

As much as he had enjoyed the play when it was only himself and Sherlock, being a part of the  _company_ was infinitely more rewarding. Even the scenes where it was only the two of them with dialogue there were others on the stage, watching and reacting, and the other players not roped into that particular scene were gathered on the fringes of the stage watching them. This was such a departure from the up-and-coming  _Dream_  they had been a part of for so long; this was the Lord Chamberlain's Men in all their glory, drunk on each other's presence and the joy of something new, and if Sherlock's energy had had such an impact on the young troupe of the former it was nothing compared to the inspiration he was now. The company were good without him on the stage, but everything seemed  _more_  once he stepped back onto it after John's exit, the emotions more palatable, the energy more vibrant.

Or perhaps that was simply John's emotion being more obvious, John's energy more desperate at the sight of the detective. He was far too giddy to tell.

He caught Will's eye as the detective was running circles around Molly in their first scene together; the playwright grinned at him and mimed wiping his chin, as though to indicate that John was drooling over the two young men on the stage. He sobered quickly. Happy as he was for people to know what was happening between himself and Sherlock, they had not discussed it between them. Sherlock often ran in different circles than he did - his brother worked directly for the  _Queen_ , for Jesu's sake - and John would not wish to embarrass him by appearing too love-struck.

Sherlock sat beside him on the edge of the stage once their scene had ended, grinning and running his long fingers through his hair. A thin film of sweat had begun to gather at his temples from the exertion, which stuck his hair where he pushed it back from his face at odd angles. It was only the second time John had ever seen the detective look less than perfectly composed, and he instantly felt his face flush scarlet at the memory of the first time. The blush did not escape the other man, who raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously. "What is it?" Sherlock asked. "I'm sweating. It's very hot, I'm sorry."

John cleared his throat. "No, it's… fine," he replied. "It's just stuck your hair on end a little, it's nothing."

The detective brushed his curls aside irritably, then stopped and looked closer at John and flushed a deep scarlet himself. "Oh," he said shyly.

"Sorry," John apologised, cursing himself for seeming so desperate. "I didn't mean to -"

"No," Sherlock interrupted him, a smile breaking out on his still-pink face. "It's fine."

A pale hand brushed against the inside of John's lower thigh where he had crossed his legs, sending a tingle through his entire body, before a cue line was apparently spoken and Sherlock was off again, striding across the stage with the air of one quietly reprimanding themselves for some misdoing.

John unfolded his legs and crossed them at the ankle in front of him instead, trying to suppress the warmth still spreading from the spot Sherlock had touched as he watched him interact gleefully with Will for a moment on stage before turning to deliver the final monologue of the scene.

_"How will this fadge?"_ Sherlock looked at John with sudden, startling clarity.  _"My master loves her dearly;  
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;  
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me._" He glanced over at Molly, who had sat down next to a tall, thin man John didn't recognise, dressed in a black tailcoat and deep purple necktie, his hair curly and falling around his temples.  
 _"What will become of this? As I am man,  
My state is desperate for my master's love:  
As I am woman - now alas the day! -_

_What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!"_ Sherlock stepped forwards to direct this at Molly and then stopped, cocking his curly head in puzzlement at the boy's companion. John snorted in sudden realisation; the newcomer was dressed exactly like Sherlock, right down to the red thread haphazardly used to mend a buttonhole on both of their coats, and was leaning so far forwards on his rickety chair he was almost drooling over John's new lover. The detective struggled to suppress a bemused smile as he turned away to deliver his final lines to Will instead.  
" _O time! Thou must untangle this, not I:  
It is too hard a knot for me to untie!"_

He wanted to say something to Sherlock, to comment on the newcomer's choice of attire or the way Molly's eyes were wide and soft like a dog gazing upon its master, but as soon as the detective had sat down beside him John was on his feet again as the hopeless Toby Belch, and that scene ran so smoothly into the next he wasn't quite sure how he would even have a chance to change costume between his last line as Belch and his first as Duke Orsino.

"Will," he said slowly, turning on the spot. The playwright hummed distractedly from a growing pile of discarded paper where he had been taking notes on the master script. "How will I be costumed, to change so quickly from that scene to this one?"

Will frowned. "That first line can be delivered from backstage, can't it?" he said, flipping a few pages. " _Give me some music -_  if the others are ahead of you leading you on, you'll have time to change behind the door while they enter. Orsino will only be a coat on top of Sir Toby's shirt and trou', from my discussions with Archie so far."

John nodded.  _"Give me some music,"_ he began, retreating to the back of the stage and ushering the others in front of him.  _"Now, good morrow, friends.  
Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,  
That old and antique song we heard last night:  
Methought it did relieve my passion much,  
More than light airs and recollected terms  
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times:_

_Come, but one verse."_

He stepped forwards at the last few lines to grab Sherlock's arm seemingly out of nowhere and pull the younger man closer and share a secret smile. Sherlock leant into his side as though he had been waiting for the touch for hours.

Another actor on the stage cleared his throat waspishly.  _"He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it,"_ he said, disapproval of the two of them clear in his voice. Sherlock awkwardly shrugged off his embrace at the sound.

_"Who was it_?" John asked, reaching instinctively to draw the detective back in and clasping nothing but empty air. Sherlock stood out of arm's reach, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

_"Feste, the jester, my lord: a fool that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in. He is about the house."_

John flapped his arm impatiently.  _"Seek him out, and play the tune the while,"_ he insisted. The man executed a cursory bow and swept offstage, throwing an incredibly judgmental look over his shoulder at the two of them. The detective had drawn one arm up to clasp the other elbow over his chest, a gesture that made him look unexpectedly vulnerable. John's chest twinged at the sight of him, and he instinctively rushed forwards to close the gap between them. A bystander cleared his throat gently, and it hit him like a slap to the face. It hadn't really occurred to John that there would be other people on stage while they did this scene, their most intimate together. Come to think of it, the last time the two of them had run it, it had barely occurred to him that they would be performing to an audience. He had been so caught up in the sheer pleasure of  _Sherlock_ he had almost forgotten that the words in his mouth had been put there by Will, for someone else's enjoyment. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

_"Come hither, boy,"_ he began, reaching out a hand and stroking it down Sherlock's arm; despite the fact that he couldn't help but glance sheepishly around them at the other players on stage, the warmth of the detective's thin shirt from his skin still sent an intimate thrill down his spine. Sherlock lifted his eyes to meet his and swallowed carefully.  _"If ever thou shalt love,  
In the sweet pangs of it remember me;  
For such I am all true lovers are,  
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,  
Save in the constant image of the creature  
That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?"_

Sherlock smiled warily, dropping his arms.  _"It gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned,"_ he admitted.

John cocked his head to one side.  _"Thou dost speak masterly,"_ he observed with some amusement.  _"My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye  
Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves:  
Hath it not, boy?"_

He said it playfully, as much the teasing master as the jealous suitor, but Sherlock did not miss the slightly bitter undertone to the words. He paused for a moment as though considering his words, and John marvelled for a moment at the sheer complexity of the emotion crossing his friend's angular face. The highest tier of their audience would surely see that Sherlock was besotted with the man before him, and yet John had no trouble believing that Orsino would miss it, completely absorbed in his own wretched longings.

_"A little, by your favour,"_ Sherlock said eventually. John heard Will let out a long breath behind him as though he had been holding it in anticipation of the line.

John allowed his shoulders to slump in time with the playwright's sigh, and crossed to the chair that had been left centre stage from the previous scene.  _"What kind of woman is't?"_ he asked, Orsino's interest piqued despite himself. John tried not to look back at Will, remembering every story of his oldest friend's romantic conquests - eagerly listened to despite the horrible knife of jealousy each word drove into his heart. Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him; John patted his knee as he sat on the chair, as though inviting his companion to sit there. Will Kemp sniggered from the stage door, but John ignored him.

Sherlock took a step closer, before seeming to check himself, to consider his options and their implications. He gave John an obvious glance over and then smiled mischievously.  _"Of your complexion,"_ he said, looking back at the group of actors gathered around Will as if sharing a secret.

Intrigued, John felt his body tipping forwards slightly in the chair as though angling to be closer to the younger man.  _"She is not worth thee, then,"_ he scolded, waving a dismissive hand at his own face. Sherlock smirked and crossed to stand behind him. A long-fingered hand asserted itself on John's shoulder almost possessively.  _"What years, i'faith?"_

_"About your years, my Lord,"_ the detective answered, a definite coy note to his voice now. John did not see the gesture he made, but Will raised an eyebrow in amused surprise.

_"Too old, by Heaven!"_ John exclaimed, turning to face his friend in shock. Sherlock hastily wiped the smile from his face.  _"Let still the woman take  
An elder than herself; so wears she to him  
So sways she level in her husband's heart.  
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,  
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,  
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,  
Than women's are."_

Again, the detective paused, but the silence this time was full of fondness and playful warmth.  _"I think it well, my Lord,"_ he answered after a moment.

_"Then let thy love be younger than thyself,"_ John instructed.  
 _"Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;  
For women are as roses, whose fair flow'r  
Being once display'd doth fall that very hour."_

_"And so they are; alas, that they are so!"_ Sherlock cried, melodramatically throwing his arms wide.  
 _"To die, even when they to perfection grow!"_

Will Kemp cleared his throat obnoxiously from behind them, and John almost laughed at the picture they might make; he seated, his neck craned to see the younger man stood so close behind him John could feel the heat from his body, arms thrown wide as though struck by lightning. He stood quickly to greet the newcomer.  _"O, fellow, come, the song we had last night,"_ he commanded.  
 _"Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;  
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,  
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,  
Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,  
And dallies with the innocence of love,  
Like the old age."_

Kemp simply stood a moment, looking from one to the other with eyes narrowed knowingly. John felt himself squirm slightly under the accusatory gaze.  _"Are you ready, sir?"_ The clown asked, but it did not sound as though he was talking about the forthcoming song.

_"Ay, prithee, sing."_ John waved him away with feigned unconcern.

The boy pulled a stringed instrument seemingly from nowhere and strummed it experimentally; since they had rehearsed a dance previously, John raised a hand for Sherlock to take in a slow promenade as Kemp began to sing.

_Come away, come away, death:  
And in sad cypress let me be laid;  
Fly away, fly away, breath,  
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.  
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,  
O, prepare it!  
My part of death no one so true  
Did share it."_

John had never heard the song before and the lyrics were not included in the cue script Will had given him; he had expected a sweet ballad of love won, and the woeful tones of hopeless despair took him by such surprise that he stopped their dance. Sherlock paused with him, clearly almost as taken aback himself. They stared at each other while Kemp sung on, their right palms pressed together between their shoulders.  
 _  
"Not a flower, not a flower sweet  
On my black coffin let there be strown;  
Not a friend, not a friend greet  
My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown;  
A thousand thousand sighs to save,  
Lay me, O, where  
Sad true lover never find my grave  
To weep there!"_

For a long moment after the last chord had been struck the two of them stood there, holding hands in front of them, each unwilling to let go. Sherlock's fingers twitched slightly when John finally made to part them, and out of the corner of his eye while making as though to pay the musician he saw the detective's hand stay a moment even after his own had left it, curling sadly into a fist as though Sherlock was struggling to hold onto the moment.  _"There's for thy pains,"_ John said quietly, holding a hand out to Kemp.

_"No pains, sir,"_ the boy rebuffed,  _"I take pleasure in singing."_

_"I'll pay thy pleasure, then,"_ John insisted.

Kemp looked meaningfully between the two of them.  _"Truly, sir,"_ he said knowingly,  _"and pleasure will be paid, one time or another."_

He couldn't help but bristle at the line, at the way the boy was looking from Sherlock to John and back again. Who was the court jester to judge his Duke for something he had caught barely a glimpse of? It took a moment before he was able to remember his next line, and when he did it came out colder than he had ever imagined Orsino capable of.  _"Give me leave to leave thee,"_ he said, waving a hand and turning away from both of them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sherlock go suddenly still. The clown's parting speech fell on dead ears as John watched his friend, frozen and suddenly looking terrified, almost betrayed. He caught the final 'farewell' of Kemp's line as he turned to Sherlock, feeling inexplicably guilty at the look on his face.

_"Let all the rest give place,"_ he said quietly, waving the servants off the stage until it was just the two of them, staring at each other in pregnant silence. He regretted the decision he had made to play that line so harsh, so vindictive; regretted the side of Orsino it had apparently invented and brutally shown to the boy he had developed such confusingly wonderful feelings for. He glanced at Will out of the corner of his eye - occasionally in the past, John added the odd line to scripts in rehearsals or performance and Will had accepted them, even added them to his script. Surely the real feelings between himself and Sherlock would make anything he pulled out of the air genuine and meaningful and  _good?_ He had even opened his mouth to his own improvisations before he thought better of it and closed it again.

_"Once more, Cesario,  
Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty," _he said instead. Sherlock shrunk yet further into himself and John kind of hated not only his character but  _himself_  for the change back to business.  
 _"Tell her my love, more noble than the world,  
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;  
The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,  
Tell her I hold as giddily as Fortune;  
But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems  
That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul."_

Sherlock made him wait for the response, slowly crossing to the chair and perching on the edge with his chin on his hands.  _"But if she cannot love you, sir?"_ he asked, and his tone was unexpectedly distant.

John raised an eyebrow as though he didn't understand the question.  _"I cannot be so answer'd."_

_"Sooth, but you must,"_ Sherlock answered in surprise. He actually sounded angry at John's blind pursuit - or was that jealousy? _  
"Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,  
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart  
As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her;  
You tell her so. Must she not then be answered?"_

Once again, John shook his head slightly as though not understanding the question.  _"There is no woman's sides  
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion  
As love doth give my heart," _he assured him. Sherlock raised an indignant eyebrow.  _"No woman's heart  
So big to hold so much: they lack retention.  
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite -  
No motion of the liver, but the palate -  
That suffer cloyment and revolt.  
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,  
And can digest as much. Make no compare  
Between that love a woman can bear me  
And that I owe Olivia."_

Sherlock was quiet, staring at the floor. Thinking back on it, John supposed he had just unwittingly insulted Viola's entire gender.  _"Ay,"_ the detective said, his voice shaking a little.  _"But I know -"_

_"What dost thou know?"_ John retorted, a little sharper than he had intended. After all, though, Cesario was just a boy; a Duke ought not to be schooled in the matter of love by someone who hadn't lived for long enough to understand what he was talking about.

_"Too well what love women to men may owe!"_ Sherlock actually shouted, springing from the chair to face John, wild and suddenly  _angry._ John was startled to see actual tears in his eyes.  
 _"In faith, they are as true of heart as we.  
My father had a daughter lov'd a man,  
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,  
I should your lordship."_

The last couplet he spoke tentatively, somehow managing to look up at John despite being so much taller. He wasn't quite sure how to react to so much insecurity being thrown at him by one of his servants at once; John cycled through a large number of possible reactions in his mind before settling for trying to appear interested to placate the younger man.  _"And what's her history?"_ he asked, taking the chair.

_"A blank, my Lord,"_ the detective responded, straightening his posture and appearing to compose himself.  _"She never told her love,  
But let concealment, like a worm i'th'bud,  
Feed on her damask cheek. She pin'd in thought,  
And with a green and yellow melancholy  
She sat like Patience on a monument,  
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?"_

Sherlock began to pace slowly around the chair, his vulnerability of a moment ago quickly replaced by something almost smug as he spun the false tale.  _"We men may say more, swear more,"_ he continued, and out of the corner of his eye John caught the cheeky grin he gave the audience at the line 'we men' and held back a chuckle.  _"But indeed  
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove  
Much in our vows, but little in our love."_

It was a transparent dig at Orsino's verbose declarations of love for Olivia, and yet John knew that the Duke was so self-absorbed he would not see it that way.  _"But died thy sister of her love, my boy?"_ John asked, grabbing Sherlock's hand as it passed him and staring up at him, transfixed.

_"I am all the daughters of my father's house,  
And all the brothers too - and yet I know not." _John frowned; even having heard and understood the rest of the play up until this point, the line barely made sense to him as an audience member, and definitely would not to Orsino. Sherlock shook off his hand while John tried to make sense of it and took a deep, controlled breath in.  _  
"Sir, shall I to this lady?"_

He looked up in surprise, having almost forgotten himself that the point of this conversation had been to convince Cesario to woo someone else on his behalf.  _"Ay, that's the theme,"_ he replied, but he couldn't help sounding a little reluctant.  _  
"To her in haste. Give her this jewel; say,  
My love can give no place, bide no denay."_

Sherlock took his time leaving the stage, pausing at the door to look back at his Lord, opening his mouth as though to say something before thinking better of it and closing the stage door behind him. John, too, lingered for a moment to share a deeply confused look with his audience before following him.

Will actually applauded the two of them once the stage was clear; John, though, made an unsatisfied face at Sherlock once they were backstage. "I like the way we did it before better," he admitted.

The detective nodded, wiping tears from under his eyes unconcernedly. "That got too complicated," he agreed. "There's too much emotion to reconcile in the final act. If we had an entire scene to think about it, perhaps, but it can't all be undone between the lines."

Will Kemp knocked his shoulder against the small of John's back, hard enough to push him forwards into Sherlock's chest. "That was intense," he commented with a chuckle. "You guys rehearse like that?"

"No, we didn't," John told him, massaging the spot on his back the best he could but not moving from where he had landed, warm against the broad expanse of the detective's chest. "I overreacted to your delivery of that line. We'll talk to Will about it later and work something -"

He cut off mid-sentence at the feeling of a long-fingered hand brushing across the seat of his trousers. Through sheer willpower John managed not to look up at Sherlock; instead, he cleared his throat as though his voice had broken. "Work something out," he finished calmly. Sherlock gave his backside a squeeze that seemed to travel right through him, sending a jolt through his groin. Sherlock hummed agreement to his statement, and John could detect a satisfied purr to the sound, like a well-fed cat.

"Anyway, it's Sir Toby's line to start the next scene," he distracted, feeling the detective's hand withdraw reluctantly. "Lot of quick changes in this one, I hope Archie's prepared."

Kemp shrugged unconcernedly, apparently having missed the unspoken exchange between the other two. "He's never missed one yet," he replied.

John had never considered what kind of lover Sherlock would be outside of the bedroom - he couldn't deny that he had thought about how things might transpire behind closed doors even before he received any sign his feelings were reciprocated, but any show of affection in public had seemed so out of character for the detective he hadn't even thought to wonder how he might act. But this was the second time he had initiated such intimate contact this afternoon, under the noses of the rest of the cast. He couldn't help but glance backstage numerous times through the next scene, and each time, Sherlock was stood in the doorway, watching with a particular spark in his grey-green eyes. Unexpected as it was, this mischievously affectionate Sherlock was far from unwelcome.

The scene he found himself in had been his favourite of Toby Belch's from the cue-script he had been given; Will took delight in Malvolio's descent into adoration upon reading what he thought were his mistress' words of love, and John took delight in watching him with a running commentary from behind the chair that was their only scenery. But he couldn't help but be a little distracted by the detective watching him with that innocently filthy smirk on his face.

Once the scene was over, John swept - well, staggered, in the manner of one who had had rather too much to drink for so early in the morning - back offstage to where Sherlock was waiting. Before he even had time to realise they were alone back there John had been pushed back against the wall and Sherlock's mouth was on his, tongue sweeping across his as though trying to taste the remnants of Shakespeare's words.

And then the detective was gone again, calling out happily to Kemp onstage to start the next scene. John completely forgot that he was also in the scene until Stamford grabbed his arm and dragged him onstage, blinking in surprise until he could remember his line. The rest of the play flew by in a blur of snatched kisses and hurried gropes in the rare moments they were alone backstage together, tucked into corners and corridors. Before John had really had time to remember the sequence of the play, Will was calling them all together again.

"Act Five is all one scene, and it may be a little confusing to read through, so take five minutes before we try it," the playwright said cheerfully. "Then we'll just go for it and see how far we can get."

John turned to grin at Sherlock, who smiled lazily back at him. His grey-green eyes travelled to the backstage door suggestively, but before they could make any kind of move to disappear Will was patting both of them on the back and reaching out a hand to snag Molly from where he was passing them on the way to fetch his water. "You three," he said indulgently. "I'm so glad I chose this direction for you. And Sherlock - Tom is fantastic."

"He  _is_ fantastic," Molly agreed, his cheeks flushed with excitement.

Sherlock raised an amused eyebrow at the boy. "I knew he could handle it," he said loftily.

Will rolled his eyes, but his expression was fond. "We never doubted you, Sherlock," he drawled. Molly was already gone, chasing after his new friend with a shout of  _Tom!._ The playwright peered from John to Sherlock and back again; Sherlock shifted quickly and out of the corner of his eye John saw his hand shoot behind his back from where it had been reaching out towards John's leg. He tried to stop himself from blushing, but Will's eyes narrowed. "Well," he said, and even though he was smiling there was something harsh in the corners of his face. "I'll let you two… prepare."

John sighed once he had left the stage; Sherlock brushed his fingers tentatively across the back of John's hand. "He disapproves," he summarised.

"Yes," John agreed. "I understand. If something were to go wrong between us it has the potential to ruin the play he's worked so hard to put together. But I think seeing how we've worked together today, he won't say anything."

Sherlock shrugged. "If you're certain this isn't going to cause a problem -"

"I'm certain," John said, flipping his hand to catch Sherlock's fingers in his palm.

The detective grinned and tugged on their hands, leading John backstage. The moment the two of them were alone together, John took the lead and pressed his friend into the stage wall, sealing their lips together.

They kissed lazily, but the mischief Sherlock had been displaying the entire afternoon was still evident in the flicks of his tongue and the wandering of his hands; John couldn't help but be delightfully surprised by this side of his new lover. "What's got into you?" he panted when they broke apart for breath.

Sherlock laughed breathlessly. "I don't know," he said, accompanying it with a peck on the lips. "I have no experience of anything like this, it's intoxicating to be able to do these things with you, here. I wasn't sensing any objections from you."

He raised an eyebrow coolly, making John chuckle. "Oh, no objections from me," he agreed. "I just wasn't expecting you to be so affectionate. This is the most fun I've ever had in this theatre."

Will clapped from the front of the stage, clearly signalling he wanted to start the final scene. Sherlock kissed John quickly on the lips and then stepped away, but not quickly enough; other members of the company were already joining them backstage.

Kemp cleared his throat wryly. "You two okay back here?" he asked.

Sherlock folded his arms. "Just rehearsing the final scene," he said calmly. John suppressed a smile; they  _would_ need to kiss in this scene. Kemp snorted, but didn't comment further, instead grabbing his scene partner and dragging him onstage to start the scene. John and Sherlock watched from the scene door until their cue, Sherlock's breath pillowing comfortably against John's neck.

_"Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friend?"_ John entered ostentatiously, arms outstretched, seeing Sherlock and their attendants fan out behind him. The two players turned to him with an apprehensive look.

_"Ay, sir, we are some of her trappings,"_ Kemp replied.

John smiled fondly.  _"I know thee well,"_ he told him, crossing to clap him on the back and make him cough uncomfortably.  _"How dost thou, my good fellow?"_

_"Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my friends,"_ the clown said, casting a resentful eye over their company.

_"Just the contrary,"_ John replied, confused,  _"the better for thy friends."_

It had always amused John how the comic relief in Will's writing often made the most poignant points; Kemp had made a mastery out of wordplay in the years they had worked together. John knew for a fact that when each new cue-script was released he would sit with the playwright and explore every possible meaning of each line just so that the double-entendres made it across to the audience. He wasn't sure he quite managed to look impatient and frustrated with the constant diversions while he was so impressed by the fact that nothing that the other boy was saying was straightforward.

The Duke took a backseat in the scene for a while so John stood by and watched Cesario get more and more confused, with the addition of the largely unfamiliar actor playing Antonio and accusing Sherlock of offences he had not committed.

Then Molly entered, flocked by another gaggle of attendants, and John staggered slightly as though physically struck by Olivia's beauty.  _"Here comes the Countess; now Heaven walks on Earth.  
But for thee, fellow -" _he turned back to Antonio with a disapproving frown, tryimg to make himself look as tall as possible,  _"fellow, thy words are madness.  
Three months this youth has tended upon me -  
But more of that anon. Take him aside."_

The younger boy curtsied politely to John as his group of attendants practically carried Antonio offstage, kicking and fighting them.  _"What would my Lord, but that he may not have,  
Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?" _Then he turned to Sherlock and his pale face bloomed with thunderclouds.  
 _"Cesario, you do not keep promise with me,"_ he said indignantly.

Sherlock blinked in surprise.  _"Madam?"_ he asked, raising a hand to his chest as if to say 'who, me?'.

John looked from one to the other in confusion, then brushed it off.  _"Gracious Olivia -"_

_"What do you say, Cesario?"_ Molly pressed.  _"Good my Lord -"_

_"My lord would speak, my duty hushes me,"_ Sherlock interrupted.

The young actor's posture changed yet again, the thunderstorms brewing into open flames. " _If it be aught to the old tune, my Lord,  
It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear  
As howling after music."_

John frowned at the ice coating Olivia's words. " _Still so cruel?"_ he asked.

_"Still so constant, Lord,"_ the boy replied. John supposed that was reasonable; there had to only be so many times a person could say no to the same spurned suitor politely.

_"What, to perverseness?"_ he said belligerently nonetheless.  _"You uncivil lady,  
To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars  
My soul the faithfull'st off'rings hath breath'd out  
That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?"_

Molly raised an eyebrow at the selfish indulgence.  _"Even what it please my lord, that shall become him,"_ he said pleasantly.

John clasped a hand around Sherlock's bicep to keep himself upright, as though the words had knocked him back, then surged forwards once more in indignant fury. Orsino had never been able to accept that Olivia would not love him when he was everything a woman should wish for in a husband, rejection by her in front of the young man the two of them were both obsessed with would be difficult for him to bear. Knowing, finally, that Olivia was just as in love with Cesario as he was and that perhaps was why she wasn't interested in him - the anger surely bubbled over the brim of Orsino's self-control.

_"Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,  
Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,  
Kill what I love?" _he raged, pushing Sherlock aside by accident.  _"A savage jealousy  
That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:  
Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,  
And that I partly know the instrument  
That screws me from my true place in your favour,  
Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;  
But this, your minion, whom I know you love,  
And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly.,  
Him will I tear out of that cruel eye  
Where he sits crowned in his master's spite." _He turned to Sherlock, who flinched at the fire in his eyes.  _  
"Come, boy, with me,"_ he spat.  _"My thoughts are ripe in mischief:  
I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love  
To spite a raven's heart within a dove."_

Desperately, Sherlock scrambled after him.  _"And I, most jocund, apt and willingly,  
To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die."_

Molly reached for Sherlock's arm as he dashed past.  _"Where goes Cesario?"_ he asked, tears brimming in his hazel eyes.

Sherlock actually stopped to throw Molly's hand off his arm and took a deep breath before delivering the line, loudly and in ringing tones.  _"After him I love,"_ he said firmly.  
 _"More than I love these eyes, more than my life.  
More by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife.  
If I do feign, you witnesses above  
Punish my life for tainting of my love."_

He made to follow John in their haughty stalk offstage, but John had paused to hear the speech and found himself unable to move off again. He glanced at Will a moment, watching him with the sparkle of delight in his eyes before looking back at the two younger actors, both distraught. Sherlock gave him the tiniest of resigned smiles and it reminded him of his own declaration mere days ago, accidental but so heartfelt.

_"Ay me, detested! How I am beguiled!"_ Molly cried, but John no longer had eyes for him.

Sherlock frowned impatiently, apparently not daring to lift his eyes from where they were locked on John's. " _Who does beguile you?"_ he asked.  _"Who does you wrong?"_

_"Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?  
Call forth the Holy Father."_

John ignored Molly and held out his hand to his manservant with a soft smile. " _Come away,"_ he ordered.

Sherlock took a shy step towards him, but Molly rushed forwards and grabbed onto the back of the detective's shirt.  _"Whither, my Lord?"_ he cried.  _"Cesario, husband, stay."_

John froze. As if from the audience itself he saw Sherlock do the same, turning on the spot to face his attacker in horror and confusion. John allowed the rushing sound in his ears to fill him with rage that bubbled into his voice.  _"Husband?"_ he thundered, seeing Sherlock cringe at the word.

_"Ay, husband, can he that deny?"_ Molly insisted. John didn't move, still ignoring the youth in favour of staring in betrayed fury at his friend.

" _Her husband, sirrah?"_ he asked coldly.

_"No, my Lord, not I,"_ Sherlock protested in perfect rhythm. John wanted to laugh at the styling of the lines, a comic couplet of such destructive power.

Molly's cheeks were flushed with anger, and he let go of Sherlock's shirt as though the fabric had burned him.  _"Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear  
That makes thee strangle thy propriety.  
Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;_

_Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art  
As great as that thou fear'st." _He held his position just a shade too close to Sherlock for comfort, gazing up at him in unabashed adoration, then turned to smile at the hooded actor who joined them.  
 _"O, welcome, father!"_ he greeted.  
 _"Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,  
Here to unfold - though lately we intended  
To keep in darkness what occasion now  
Reveals before 'tis ripe - what thou dost know  
Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me."_

The three of them turned towards the newcomer, who took one of each of the two younger actors' hands in both of his own.  _"A contract of eternal bond of love,"_ he answered,  
 _"Confirmed by the mutual joinder of your hands,  
Attested by the holy close of lips,  
Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings  
And all the ceremony of this compact  
Seal'd in my function, by my testimony;  
Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave  
I have travell'd but two hours." _He placed the two men's hands together, but Sherlock yanked his back to his side before it could touch Molly's.

John took a step towards Sherlock, trying to make himself as tall and broad as possible; with anyone else he would have tried to physically intimidate them, to tower over them, but Sherlock had such a height advantage John had to show his rage more through the power of his voice than he was accustomed to.

_"O thou dissembling cub!"_ he shouted; helpfully, the detective cowered in the face of it, making himself as small as possible.  _"What wilt thou be,  
When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?  
Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow  
That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?" _he paused for a moment, frozen with one hand lifted, then dropped it with a sigh and a shake of his head.  
 _"Farewell, and take her,"_ he spat, gesturing violently at Molly. " _But direct thy feet  
Where thou and I henceforth may never meet."_

_"My lord, I do protest -"_ Sherlock tried, yet again stepping towards John only for Molly to catch hold of his arm and trap him back.

_"O, do not swear!"_ the boy exclaimed.

_"Have little faith, though thou hast too much fear."_

Mike Stamford knocked on the wall behind them in an affectation of clumsiness to announce his arrival and shouted  _"For the love of God, a surgeon!"_ as he burst through the door and the other players' reverie.  _"Send one presently to Sir Toby."_

Molly let go of Sherlock in surprise.  _"What's the matter?"_ he asked.

_"Has broke my head across,"_ the older man insisted, pointing at it,  _"and has given Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather than forty pounds I were at home."_

_"Who has done this, Sir Andrew?"_ Molly repeated patiently, raising a hand to try to comfort him.

Stamford threw his arms in the air in distress. " _The Count's gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a coward, but he's the very devil incardinate."_

John blinked.  _"My gentleman, Cesario?"_

Mike started upon seeing Sherlock, his pale hands lifted to his mouth in shock.  _"'Od's lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby."_

Sherlock rounded on him, seemingly having had enough of not knowing what was going on.  _"Why do you speak to me?"_ he demanded.  _"I never hurt you.  
You drew your sword upon me without cause,  
But I bespake you fair and hurt you not."_

_"If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me,"_ Mike insisted.  _"I think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting -"_ he stopped suddenly and dropped his arms, looking uncertainly at John, whose stomach had dropped to the floor. "Um," he said dumbly.

"Yes," John agreed. He turned to Will, all of them dropping character completely. "Will?"

The playwright, too, was scratching his head in mounting panic. "I know, I see it," he said absently. "Sorry, John, I don't know what I was thinking, I knew you'd be playing both parts when I wrote this. I must have thought we could cheat it somehow."

Kemp, who had entered on the cue that John had for Sir Toby a few lines back, cleared his throat. "It doesn't look like the Duke has a conversation with Toby, unless it's in your script and not mine? Could we have one of them 'speak' from offstage?"

Will slowly sat down on the stool someone had placed behind him, buried in his scripts. "That must have been it," he agreed. "Perhaps if the Duke greets him -  _how now, gentleman -_ while Toby is still offstage, while John's walking offstage, and then John if you duck off, change and come back on as Toby, then the Duke has no lines until Sebastian enters. The audience knows it's the same person anyway because the costume will just be a jacket for the Duke that comes off for Toby, so the quick change will work as well." He dramatically threw the script aside, its pages separating and scattering across the stage. "Shall we try it like that?"

John nodded. "Not the most horrific quick change you've given me, but pretty damned close," he told his friend resignedly. "Mike, if we go from  _here comes Sir Toby_?"

_"Here comes Sir Toby halting;"_ Stamford immediately resumed.  _"You shall hear more: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickl'd you othergates than he did."_

_"How now, gentleman? How is't with you?"_ John called, turned towards the stage door as if addressing someone he could see through it that the audience could not. Instead of waiting for an answer, he started towards the door. Once behind it, he waited a moment before exiting again, staggering backwards, greeting the version of himself he may have just passed, clutching his head in befuddled pain.  _"That's all one;"_ he said, dropping into the rougher elecution he had used for Toby.  _"Has hurt me, and there's th' end on't. Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?"_

He heard Sherlock snort a little behind him at the clumsiness of the doubling, but Kemp drowned it out with a merry laugh.  _"O, he's drunk, Sir Toby,"_ he chuckled, loping forwards to take responsibility for the statement.  _"An hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i'th'morning."_

_"Then he's a rogue and a passy measures pavin. I hate a drunken rogue,"_ John said, grumpily and rather hypocritically.

Molly raised an eyebrow incredulously at the audience.  _"Away with him,"_ he said idly, waving his hand.  _"Who hath made this havoc with them?"_

" _I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dressed together,"_ Stamford said bravely.

John staggered towards him in order to push him vengefully away.  _"Will you help?"_ he shouted angrily,  _"an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a thin-fac'd knave, a gull?"_

He struggled valiantly as Molly rushed to comfort and restrain him both.  _"Get him to bed,"_ the boy said sympathetically, patting him on the back. John shrugged him off churlishly.  _"And let his hurt be look'd to."_

John allowed his friends to half-carry him offstage, mumbling insults just loud enough for the audience to make out the odd word as he went, dropping them the instant they were out of view and passed by the younger actor set to play Sebastian. "Archie will be back here," Mike Stamford muttered to him as they let him go. "He can hold the Duke's coat out so all you have to do is back into it, shouldn't be too much of a pause onstage."

"There shouldn't be any pause onstage," John countered, straightening his shirt sleeves a little. "Sebastian has a few lines, I should be able to creep back on before I'm needed." He grinned flippantly at them. The actor had indeed begun to speak onstage, so John patted his friend on the arm and followed him on, looking back and frowning as though he had passed himself once more.

_"Pardon me, sweet one,"_ he was saying, taking Molly's hand in his own and kissing it,  _"even for the vows  
We made each other but so late ago."_

John staggered upon seeing him as if struck, darting his gaze between Tom and Sherlock until all the other players on the stage turned to stare at him. He allowed this for a moment before delivering his next line.  _"One face,"_ he said, as quietly as he could manage,  _"one voice, one habit, and two persons!  
A natural perspective, that is and is not."_

Tom turned to their Antonio, who hadn't spoken since the beginning of the scene, and dropped Olivia's hand in surprise.  _"Antonio, O my dear Antonio!  
How have the hours rack'd and tortured me  
Since I have lost thee!"_

The stocky actor swallowed visibly. " _Sebastian are you?"_

_"Fears't thou that, Antonio?"_

John wondered for a moment why it was acceptable for Antonio to be so obviously head over heels for Sebastian, why that love could be spoken and acknowledged, but Orsino and Cesario needed to be so confusing for the audience that they didn't know whether they were disgusted or aroused.

Their Antonio stood stunned, as though speech was beyond him.  _"How have you made division of yourself?"_ he managed quietly.  
" _An apple cleft in two is not more twin  
Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?"_

_"Most wonderful!"_ Molly breathed, causing Will to explode in hysterical laughter.

John chuckled, too, but both Molly and Sherlock turned to look at the two of them in confusion while Tom simply smiled nervously. "Molly…" Will choked out once he had calmed himself down enough. "Don't say that line while thinking what you were just thinking."

John collapsed back into laughter, whilst the younger actor turned a very deep shade of pink. "I… is that not what she's supposed to be thinking?" he stammered. "I mean - she's clearly attracted to both of them, I -"

"No, it's a valid interpretation," the playwright agreed, "just make it a little less obvious."

Molly nodded and reset himself on the stage, taking a deep, calming breath. John snorted helplessly, and the younger boy suppressed a smile with difficulty.  _"Most wonderful,"_ he repeated, the smile breaking through and making it possibly  _more_ obvious what he had been thinking. There were scattered giggles from the assembled cast.

Will rolled his eyes. "Keep going, hold it together," he urged them.

Sebastian cleared his throat.  _"Do I stand there?"_ he said in wonder, slowly approaching Sherlock until they stood facing each other. They were of a height, and John could imagine that dressed in the same costume it would be like looking in a mirror from the audience.  _"I never had a brother,  
Nor can there be that deity in my nature  
Of here and everywhere. I had a sister,  
Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd.  
Of charity, what kin are you to me?  
What countryman, what name, what parentage?"_

To cement the effect, Tom lifted a hand and waved it in front of his face; Sherlock did not react.  _"Of Messaline,"_ he replied calmly.  _"Sebastian was my father.  
Such a Sebastian was my brother too;  
So went he suited to his watery tomb;  
If spirits can assume both form and suit  
You come to fright us."_

_"A spirit I am indeed,  
But I am in that dimension grossly clad  
Which from the womb I did participate.  
Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,  
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek  
And say, "thrice welcome, drowned Viola!"_

Sherlock was quiet for a moment, but John could see his chest rising and falling more rapidly as though he was struggling to stay calm.  _"My father had a mole upon his brow,"_ he said after a moment.

_"And so had mine,"_ Tom replied, beginning to sound hopeful.

_"And died that day when Viola from her birth  
Had number'd thirteen years," _Sherlock continued, echoing the tone of voice.

_"O, that record is lively in my soul!  
He finished indeed his mortal act  
That day that made my sister thirteen years."_

Sherlock took a visible deep breath in, and went for it.  _"If nothing lets to make us happy both  
But this my masculine usurp'd attire,  
Do not embrace me 'till each circumstance  
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump  
That I am Viola; which to confirm,  
I'll bring you to a captain in this town,  
Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help  
I was preserved to serve this noble Count.  
All the occurrence of my fortune since  
Hath been between this lady and this lord."_

John had frozen at the phrase  _maiden's weeds_ , and stood stock still staring at his friend as though unable to believe his ears, as though his brain had been filled with a rush like a river where nothing made sense anymore and yet a great many things made more sense than they had in a long time.

He supposed Orsino would not have laughed with a woman the way he had with Cesario, would not have shared so much so willingly. He himself had always found his relationships with men more fulfilling than the women he had courted, simply because he acted differently around them from the very start, more natural, less courtly and polite. Viola would have told him things as Cesario that a woman would never have uttered. The abrupt proposal and assumed response made a little more sense when he thought of it like that: Cesario had said he loved Orsino more than he should ever love a woman, had already professed undying affection. If  _Sherlock_  was a woman, he thought, John may already have proposed to him. If he had the sudden opportunity to formally share his life with someone who suited him so well, to start a family with them - why would he wait or doubt what he already knew they had?

He caught himself smiling goofily at Sherlock and forced himself back to a mildly composed look as Tom spoke again to a completely gobsmacked Molly.

_"So comes it, lady, you have been mistook,"_ he was saying.  
 _"But nature to her bias drew in that.  
You would have been contracted to a maid;  
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived,  
You are betroth'd both to a maid and man."_

Molly stood gaping, his mouth opening and closing like a fish finding itself unexpectedly out of water.

John cleared his throat, venturing a tentative step closer to Sherlock with one hand hesitantly outstretched.  _"Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.  
If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,  
I shall have share in this most happy wreck."_

Sherlock turned to face him, a look on his angular face as though not daring to hope; he saw the hand outstretched and took it in both of his own, clasping it tightly to his breast.  _"Boy,"_ John breathed, wondering whether Orsino would be able to feel the bandages from where Viola would have bound her breasts flat to confirm the story.  _"Thou hast said to me a thousand times  
Thou never shouldst love woman like to me."_

_"All those sayings will I overswear;  
And those swearings keep as true in soul -"_

"Stop."

The two of them turned to look at Will, who was standing with his arms folded and a critical frown on his face. "Sorry, I know you were in the middle of it, and it was very good, it's just… that -  _thou hast said to me a thousand times -_  that's possibly the most important line in the play. That's what makes all the tension, all the  _subtext_ worth it. It needs at least a pause before the next line."

John grinned at Sherlock, whose shoulders had slumped at the sound of Will's voice. Sherlock smiled back at him, his posture seeming to relax a little as though resigning himself to repeating the moment. John's hand was still clasped in both of Sherlock's own, pressed so tightly to his chest he could feel the thumping of his heart.  _"Boy,"_ he repeated, as softly as he thought he could get away with in the space,  _"thou hast said to me a thousand times  
Thou never shouldst love woman like to me."_

Sherlock hesitated the tiniest of moments as though unsure what to do, how to react; John could almost see the thoughts turning in his head like the wheels on a cart. It was clear the detective was suddenly acting with his head rather than his heart, calculated emotion rather than raw feeling, and John knew he had to stop it because this moment, of all the moments, needed to be _felt_  instead of thought. He reached out a hand to cover Sherlock's and squeezed, trying to bring his friend's attention back to him.

The detective's grey-green eyes refocused slowly, as though Sherlock had known he was there but not really  _seen_ him before. Then Sherlock smiled and visibly relaxed, and John knew he had him back.

Sherlock shook their hands apart gently in favour of sliding both of them against the curve of John's jawbone, the warmth cupping his chin like steam from a cup of Angelo's tea. And then the detective was pulling John's face close to his own and swooping in for a deep, searching kiss.

He thought it would never end, and didn't want it to; knew that all the Lord Chamberlain's Men were watching and waiting for the kiss to end, and didn't care. He remembered his first kiss with the detective - was it only the night before? - and how much of a revelation it had been, how many weeks and months of tension it had resolved in a few delicate sweeps of tongue against lip. If it had been that with someone he had already reasoned that he loved, had already decided to let himself love, how much greater and  _more_ would it be for Orsino to kiss Viola, whom he had been trying to pretend he wasn't in love with for just as long?

John clung to Sherlock through the kiss until he could actually feel the awkwardness coming from Molly and Tom onstage with them, and then finally allowed them to break apart. Sherlock glanced at the other two and laughed, a clear and joyful sound like the first peal of a wedding bell.  _"And all those sayings will I overswear,"_ he continued, in a rush of excitement and still with both hands on John's face.  
 _"And those swearings keep as true in soul  
As doth that orbed continent the fire  
That severs day from night."_

_"Give me thy hand,"_ John said in a similar rush, as though he had said the words in his head a thousand times but never thought he might say them aloud.  
 _"And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds."_

Sherlock nodded happily, letting go of John's chin to take the hand that had been offered and place another quick kiss on his lips.  _"The captain that did bring me first on shore  
Hath my maid's garments: he upon some action  
Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit,  
A gentleman, and follower of my lady's."_

Molly stepped forwards as though trying to reassert himself in the scene, a slightly churlish look struggling not to show itself on his young face.  _"He shall enlarge him,"_ he said graciously,  _"fetch Malvolio hither:_

_And yet - alas, now I remember me -  
They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.  
A most extracting frenzy of mine own  
From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.  
How does he, sirrah?"_

From a previous read of their scripts John assumed it was some time before he or Sherlock spoke again, so he took the detective's hand and sat them both down upon an ornamental rock left there from the week's performance of  _Dream._ He put an arm around the detective and the younger man leaned his head against John's shoulder, seemingly content in their togetherness at last. Together there they listened to the tale of Malvolio until finally Molly turned to the two of them and smiled to see them embracing.

_"My lord,"_ he said fondly,  _"so please you, these things further thought on,  
To think me as well a sister as a wife,  
One day shall crown the alliance on't, so please you,  
Here at my house and at my proper cost."_

John stood to answer him, his arms open and welcoming.  _"Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer,"_ he said pleasantly. He turned to Sherlock, still sat on the rock, and beamed until he thought his cheeks might crumble.  _  
"Your master quits you,"_ he said,  _"and for your service done him,  
So much against the mettle of your sex,  
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,  
And since you call'd me master for so long,  
Here is my hand: you shall from this time be  
Your master's mistress."_

Sherlock took his hand and used it to help himself stand, so close that their chests were touching. John wrapped both arms around the detective's waist and tugged him yet closer, pushing their groins together. He felt a distinctive twitch in the other man's trousers and had to close his eyes and bite the inside of his lip for a moment to prevent a similar stirring in his own. When he felt the coast was clear, he leaned forwards and pressed their lips together, softly and more romantically than before, feeling the pull of their bodies against each other.

_"A sister! You are she,"_ Molly cried, breaking them apart abruptly. He was smiling, but there was something hard in his eyes that betrayed the expression. John wondered if Olivia would have noticed the difference in personality between Cesario and Sebastian, would have preferred one over the other. He supposed even if he had preferred Sebastian, even knowing that she was married to the man she had gone to the church with, it would still be difficult to watch the man she had fallen in love with kissing the man she had repeatedly spurned.

It hadn't occurred to him until now that Sherlock would still be dressed as Cesario at this point, would still for all intents and purposes look like a man.

He was still processing what that would look like for the audience - even Rosalind had changed her dress in order to reveal herself - when there was a commotion at the stage door for Will's entrance as the deranged Malvolio. Still clasping Sherlock's hands in his own, John turned to watch them. " _Is this the madman?"_ he asked.

_"Aye, my lord, this same,"_ Molly said sadly.  
 _"How now, Malvolio?"_

Will shook off the two actors hesitantly holding onto his arms and stamped his foot dramatically. He lifted a finger with great showmanship to point it accusingly at Molly. " _Madam, you have done me wrong,  
Notorious wrong," _he thundered.

Molly raised an eyebrow, apparently unfazed.  _"Have I, Malvolio? No."_

Sherlock wrapped an arm around John's waist and tugged until their hips bumped together; John smiled up at him and wondered once again at how the two of them would look to the audience. Having the chance to show them a relationship between two men was an intoxicating thought: if he hadn't already wanted to strip Sherlock bare right there on the stage that idea would have brought him there. Society's perception of same-sex relationships made no sense to him, and he knew it made no sense to Will either. The two of them had had more than one late-night conversation - often naked with only bedsheets between them - about how the Greeks had seen relationships like theirs as superior even to those between men and women, and how surely society would come around again one day. Being able to kiss Sherlock, on stage, dressed as a man, was a huge step forwards, even if he was pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man.

He kissed him again just to cement the knowledge in his head: Viola and Cesario was a confusing enough duality by this point that the audience wouldn't even know whether they were supposed to accept this relationship or not, but they  _would_ accept it. His next line was the proof of it.

_"Pursue him and entreat him to a peace,"_ he recited when it was time, when Will had stormed off the stage in a cold fury;  
 _"He hath not told us of the captain yet:  
When that is known and golden time convents,  
A solemn combination shall be made  
Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,  
We will not part from hence." _He grabbed Sherlock's hand and looked him appreciatively up and down one last time.  _"Cesario, come,"_ he insisted playfully.  
 _"For so you shall be, while you are a man:  
But when in other habits you are seen,  
Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen."_

Sherlock grinned, and curtsied mockingly, and all of them except Kemp left the stage for the final time. When they reached the backstage door, Sherlock pounced: apparently not caring who was watching them, he pinned John to the flat of the stage and kissed him like the world was ending.

"Well," John panted when they broke apart, looking at the fire in Sherlock's grey-green eyes and feeling his stomach dissolve into a puddle of lust. "Everyone knows."

The detective rolled his eyes. "Everyone knew," he said.

Mike Stamford actually laughed from beside them. John raised an eyebrow at him. "Everyone knew," he confirmed, earning murmurs of assent from the rest of the company and a deep, rumbling chuckle from Sherlock. "We don't care. You two are brilliant on stage, even Will doesn't care what you do off stage."

Sherlock's long fingers found John's chin and gently tugged it back around to face him. "Is that okay?" he asked quietly.

John couldn't hold back his smile. "It's fantastic," he said, and pressed their lips together once more. Stamford's quiet, mocking applause was undercut by the sound of Kemp's ringing delivery of  _What You Will's_ final line.

_"But that's all one, our play is done,  
And we'll strive to please you every day."_


End file.
